【艾希德和艾达夫妇： “Where you will go I will go.” 泰坦尼克沉船上忠贞不渝生死相依的挚爱真情】

Isidore and Ida Straus

RMS Titanic 泰坦尼克号轮船沉没前

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 105^th 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 20^th 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.

结婚四十一年的夫妇

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.

　　　泰坦尼克号撞上冰山之际，施特劳斯夫人艾达在丈夫的劝说下恋恋不舍地离开，一只脚已经在救生艇内，但她却突然转念，跨出救生艇，又回来和丈夫站在了一起，说道：

“这么多年我们一直生活在一起，此刻你去哪儿我去哪儿。”

　　　　施特劳斯夫人把自己在救生艇里的活命的位置让给了一位女佣。

　　　　这时有人向67岁的施特劳斯先生提出，“保证不会有人反对像您这样的老先生上小艇……”

伊西·施特劳斯坚定地回答，“我绝不会在别的男人之前上救生艇。”

然后，他挽着63岁的太太艾达的手臂，一对老夫妇蹒姗地走到甲板的藤椅上坐下，

相互依偎着，手挽手，泰然地等待着最后时刻的到来。

，，，，，，

几天后艾希德的尸体找到了，但艾达的却永无踪影。

人们为她塑像纪念她对爱情的忠贞生死相依不离不弃同生共死令人下泪令人崇敬！

　　　　艾希德·施特劳斯身为屈指可数的大富翁和美国国会众议院议员，他却没有去寻求特权，而是坦然地面对死亡，

把生的希望让给了别人，把死的定局留给了自己，真正的人，真正的丈夫，大丈夫！

如今在纽约市的上西城106街的拐角离其当年居所尺步之遥，

矗立着人们当年自发捐资为艾达和艾希德夫妇建造的纪念碑和纪念公园。

曼哈顿公立198 小学也是以施特劳斯夫妇名字命名的。

雕塑和纪念碑公园是在泰坦尼克号沉没施特劳斯夫妇殉难3周年来临之际落成的。1915-4-12。

雕像安详的艾达几乎卧于波浪之上雕塑家引领人们缅怀追逐着那金光闪亮的心灵

中文有说纪念碑上刻著这样的文字：“无论多少海水都不会淹没爱。”

（Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.）

其实碑上根本没有这句话，此语乃圣经诗歌 Song of Solomon 8 里的一言。

，，，，

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^c would be utterly despised.