Violet was a true survivor. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she was born in Argentina. When her father, a sheep farmer died suddenly, the family returned to Britain. Her mother found work as a stewardess on the Royal Mail Line and when she became ill Violet left convent school and became a stewardess as well, first with the Royal Mail Line like her mother, but then switched to the White Star line. This is where the story gets interesting. She was serving aboard the Olympic when, it collided with HMS leaving two gaping holes in the ship. She loved working aboard the Olympic, but her friends successfully convinced her to join them and it wasn't long before they joined the crew of the brand new ship Titanic in Southhampton. On the night of the collision between TItanic and the iceberg, Violet was comfortably drowsy in her bunk when it occured. Making her way to the main deck, she and other parts of the crew were loaded into lifeboats and lowered to sea. They drifted for eight hours before being picked up by the Carpathia. Following this traumatic event, WWI loomed on the horizon and feeling the need to serve, she became a nurse with the British Red Cross as Britain catapulted in to WWI. She was aboard the Britannic when that ship was sunk in the Aegean in 1916. Late in life Violet would retire to a 16th century thatched cottage in Great Ashfield, Suffolk surrounded by mementoes of her 42 years at sea. What stories she had to tell.