Many people are unaware of the significance of the memorial for Ida and Isidor Straus that is located on the main floor of the Manhattan location of Macy’s Department Store. Not only were Ida and Isidor previous owners of Macy’s, they were also victims who lost their lives when The Titanic sank in 1912. The heartbreaking story of Ida and Isidor is briefly referenced in the movie Titanic during the scene that shows an elderly couple embracing as the ship sank.
The story of Ida and Isidor began during the Civil War. Isidor, who was raised in The South, moved to New York and co-founded a store that specialized in the sale of glassware and crockery. After accumulating significant wealth, Isidor married a woman named Rosalie Ida Blun. The two were very dedicated to each other and were virtually inseparable. When circumstances required them to be apart from one another, they would exchange letters on a daily basis.
Following their completion of a trip to Germany, Ida and Isidor boarded the Titanic to return to the United States. When the ship struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Ida and Isidor took their devotion to one another to a new level. When it became apparent that nothing could prevent the Titanic from sinking, Ida was offered a seat in a lifeboat along with other women and children. However, she refused to leave Isidor’s side.
Upon noticing that Ida had refused to leave her husband’s side, a friend of the Straus’s named Colonel Archibald Gracie IV reportedly volunteered to ask a deck officer if Isidor and Ida could board one of the lifeboats together. However, Isidor refused to occupy a seat in a lifeboat while there were still women and children on board the sinking ship. Isidor reportedly responded to Colonel Gracie’s offer by declaring, “I will not go before the other men.”
Rather than getting into a lifeboat herself, Ida urged her English maid, Ellen Bird, to take a seat in lifeboat #8. Ida proceeded to give Ellen her fur coat, telling Ellen that she would not need it. Reports indicate that Ida said, “I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so we will die, together.”
The last time anyone saw Isidor and Ida on The Titanic they were together on the deck arm in arm. They walked together to the back of the panicked crowd where they sat down in two chairs on the ship’s deck. They calmly held hands until they were swept into the sea by a massive wave that hit the ship. Ship passengers who witnessed the scene characterized it as a, “most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion.”