Isidore and Ida Straus
RMS Titanic 泰坦尼克號輪船 沉沒前
On April 19, 1912, just four days after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, Alfred Crawford testified before the United States Senate committee investigating the disaster. Crawford had been a stateroom steward on the doomed ship.
The man was asked if he knew Mrs. Isidor Straus. He did.
Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, were returning home to New York on the Titanic. Straus was a co-owner with his brothers of R. H. Macy & Co. as well as Abraham & Straus department store in Brooklyn. The 67-year old was also a director of several banks and Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce. He was highly regarded for his generosity. The New York Times would call him “a supporter of almost every philanthropic and charitable institution in New York, regardless of creed.”
Chester testified that he was in a lifeboat and took Mrs. Straus’ hand to help her in. “She started to get in, but then changed her mind and went back.”
Senator Smith asked “Started to get in?”
“Yes, she had one foot on the gunwale and then drew back,” said Chester.
Ida Straus looked back to her husband of 41 years standing on the deck and let go of Chester’s hand. “We have been together a number of years,” she said to her husband. “Where you will go I will go.”
She then instructed her maid to take her place on the lifeboat.
Later, as the aged couple sat quietly on deck chairs holding hands, the grand RMS Titanic slipped beneath the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Water lilies float serenely in the reflecting pool during the dedication of the Straus Memorial in 1915 -- Library of Congress
An orchestra played for the many who assembled for the dedication on April 12, 1915 -- Library of Congress
The couple was mourned nationwide, but nowhere so deeply as in New York City. Four weeks later a memorial service was held for them in Carnegie Hall and thousands crammed into the auditorium. “The great hall was filled to capacity, and hundreds who pleaded to get in were turned away because there was no more room inside. Every seat and every box was occupied, while perhaps 300 men and women stood up in the rear of the auditorium,” reported The New York Times.
During the ceremony, Jacob H. Schiff mentioned Ida’s fidelity to her husband. “There is no doubt that in the awful hour when the Titanic sank that the noble woman broke not the oath that she had given at the altar, ‘Until death do us part.’”
The cable ship Mackay-Bennett recovered Isidor Straus’s body which was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. Ida was never found, but the Straus tomb included an empty spot next to her husband.
The Straus home stood at 27-47 Broadway, near 105th Street, within sight of a small, triangular park called Bloomingdale Square. On July 2, 1912 the Board of Aldermen adopted the resolution directing that the park “is hereby named and shall hereafter be known and designated as ‘Straus Park.’”
A move to erect a memorial to the couple was immediate and subscriptions poured in. $20,000 had been donated by the Fall. A competition for the memorial design was held and in November the Magazine of Art reported that “The prize was awarded to Mr. Augustus Lukeman, the collaborating architect being Mr. Evarts Tracy.”
The little, oddly shaped park made designing an appropriate memorial difficult. “It was finally concluded that anything mainly monumental would not be desirable both because of the modesty of Mr. and Mrs. Straus and because the site selected is a small triangular park with a background of apartment houses which would not serve as a proper frame for anything very high,” explained the magazine.
Luckman’s design, one of 59 submissions, included a serene lily pond fed by a two-tiered fountain. Above the fountain was a reclining bronze figure of a contemplative female upon a granite ledge. Luckman called his memorial “Memory.”
Today the lily pond has been replaced by a not-so-lovely flower bed -- photo museumplanet.com
Behind the sculpture a granite bench provided a place of rest for those visiting the memorial. The Straus Memorial, paid for entirely by public donations, was dedicated on April 15, 1915, three years to the day after the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The Times called it “one of the most beautiful monuments of its kind in the country.”
Inscribed on the rear of the monument was the biblical passage from II Samuel 1:23:
Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives
And in their death they were not divided
The neighborhood around the Straus Memorial declined as the 20th century wound down and by 2007 the memorial had suffered some abuse. That year the Parks’ Monuments Conservation Program initiated a restoration, sponsored mostly by The History Channel.
Regretfully, the lily pond—a crucial element in Augustus Lukeman’s design--was filled in as a flower bed in order to facilitate easier maintenance.
photographs taken by the author
Straus Park is a small landscaped park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York, at the intersection of Broadway, West End Avenue, and 106th Street.
結婚四十一年的夫婦
The most notable feature is a bronze 1913 statue by American artist Augustus Lukeman of a nymph gazing over a calm expanse of water in memory of Ida and Isidor Straus, a United States congressman and co-owner of Macy’s, who perished on the RMS Titanic.The model for the statue was Audrey Munson. On the memorial is carved a passage from Second Samuel 1:23, "Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives and in their death they were not parted." The passage refers to Ida’s choice to stay with her beloved husband, Isidor, rather than get safely into a lifeboat.
泰坦尼克號撞上冰山之際，施特勞斯夫人艾達在丈夫的勸說下 戀戀不舍地離開，一隻腳已經在救生艇內，但她卻突然轉念，跨出救生艇，又回來和丈夫站在了一起，說道：
“這麽多年我們一直生活在一起，此刻 你去哪兒 我去哪兒。”
施特勞斯夫人把自己在救生艇裏的活命的位置讓給了一位女傭。
這時有人向67歲的施特勞斯先生提出，“保證不會有人反對像您這樣的老先生上小艇……”
伊西·施特勞斯堅定地回答，“我絕不會在別的男人之前上救生艇。”
然後，他挽著63歲的太太艾達的手臂，一對老夫婦蹣姍地走到甲板的藤椅上坐下，
相互依偎著，手挽手，泰然地等待著最後時刻的到來。
，，，，，，
幾天後 艾希德的屍體找到了，但 艾達的卻永無蹤影。
人們為她塑像 紀念她對愛情的忠貞 生死相依 不離不棄 同生共死 令人下淚 令人崇敬！
艾希德·施特勞斯身為屈指可數的大富翁和美國國會眾議院議員，他卻沒有去尋求特權，而是坦然地麵對死亡，
把生的希望讓給了別人，把死的定局留給了自己，真正的人， 真正的丈夫， 大丈夫！
如今在紐約市的上西城106街的拐角 離其當年居所尺步之遙，
矗立著人們當年自發捐資為艾達和艾希德夫婦建造的紀念碑和紀念公園。
曼哈頓 公立198 小學 也是以 施特勞斯夫婦名字命名的。
雕塑和紀念碑公園是在泰坦尼克號沉沒 施特勞斯夫婦殉難3周年 來臨之際落成的。1915-4-12。
雕像 安詳的艾達幾乎臥於波浪之上 雕塑家引領人們緬懷追逐著那金光閃亮的心靈
中文有說紀念碑上刻著這樣的文字：“無論多少海水都不會淹沒愛。”
（Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.）
其實 碑上根本沒有這句話，此語乃 聖經詩歌 Song of Solomon 8 裏的一言。
，，，，
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the LORD.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
，，，，
紀念碑 也不在 布朗士 Bronx區，而是 曼哈頓上城西部。
（筆者 特此校正，英文原文 也就不全文翻譯了）
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施特勞斯 墓地 The gravesite of Isidor Straus inWoodlawn Cemetery
