The OceanGate CEO's Wife Is Descended From a Couple Who Perished on the Titanic
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As the search for the missing Titanic tourist submersible enters a critical stage, reporters uncovered an eerie connection between victims of the Titanic disaster and the OceanGate CEO—who is also the pilot of the missing sub.
Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, is descended from Ida and Isidor Straus, two first-class passengers who perished in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The New York Times reports Wendy, born Wendy Hollings Weil, is the great-great-granddaughter of Ida and Isidor Straus, passengers known for "their tragic love story," as Ida refused a lifeboat seat to remain with her husband.
As Town & Country wrote:
"Just four days before, Mrs. Isidor Straus had written a letter aboard Titanic, that is now owned by her great-grandson Ken Straus: 'But what a ship! It’s so huge and so magnificently appointed.' As the ship began to list Ida almost entered lifeboat number 8, but then changed her mind and rejoined her husband. 'I will not be separated from my husband,' she said softly. 'As we have lived, so we will die. Together.' After wrapping Mrs. Straus' fur coat around their maid Ellen Bird and seeing her into the lifeboat, the old couple sat for a bit in the deck chairs, watching the other passengers. Then, around 12:50, they retired to their stateroom."
The Strauses were fictionalized in James Cameron's 1997 film, Titanic, when the movie showed an older couple embracing in bed in their cabin. A cenotaph in the Bronx is dedicated to the Strauses, which reads "Many waters cannot quench love—neither can the floods drown it," a quote from the Song of Songs.
As of this writing, search and rescue efforts remain ongoing for the five men in the missing submersible: Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood, and Suleman Dawood.
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