Oct 20, 2023
Lillian Asplund was the last survivor of the Titanic who could remember the infamous voyage — she was 5 when the “unsinkable ship” struck an iceberg, and more than 1,500 of her fellow passengers perished at sea.
Later, Asplund worked as a secretary at State Mutual Life Insurance, headquartered in Worcester’s first skyscraper, at the corner of Main Street and Maple, downtown. She lived a quiet life, gardening and caring for her mother and younger brother. They, like she, huddled together on a lifeboat, watching the ship go down like a tall building crumbling into the ocean at 2:19 a.m. April 15, 1912...