Last American survivor of Titanic dies at age 99

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, died at the age of 99 on Sunday, a funeral home said. Asplund was just 5 years old when she lost her father and three brothers - including a fraternal twin - when the "practically unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. Although she was the last Titanic survivor with actual memories of the sinking, she shunned publicity and rarely spoke about the events. Asplund died Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, said Ronald E. Johnson, vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel in Worcester, Massachusetts. "She went to sleep peacefully," he said.