More on the Titanic Exhibit

Yesterday I wrote a post about visiting the Idaho Falls History Museum where they had a traveling exhibit of artifacts from teh Titanic. I wanted to mention that one of the elements that made it really interesting, and in a weird way personalized the effect of the tragedy, was that every ticket came a long with a card identifying one specific passenger from the original voyage. Here's a copy of the card I received:

As I walked through the exhibit, I could kind of wonder how much of what I was seeing was originally experienced by Colonel Weir. Just before exiting the exhibit, they had a series of large posters listing both the survivors and those who didn't make it, broken down by their class of ticket. On a quick glance, I didn't see Colonel Weir among those who died, and started to feel kind of glad; but then I couldn't find him on the survivor's list either. Looking back at the first list, I spotted his name and it gave me a little shiver. I wonder how many people awaiting word of loved ones on the ship had some kind of similar momentary false hope, and it really brought home the impact of something like this among family and friends. I guess I'll always feel a little bad that Colonel Weir was among those lost; and all of a sudden some historically distant event was brought into much sharper focus, and on a human scale that's too often missed when we look at big events of the past. Just one of the reasons to applaud the curators of this exhibit.