Vessel of Hope: David Vartanian, The Titanic Survivor

David Vartanian, a 22-year-old Armenian, fled the crumbling Ottoman Empire and secured a ticket on the Titanic's maiden voyage to America in 1912. Like many young Armenian men of the time; his plan was to establish himself in the new world and send for his young wife, Mary whom he had recently married in his hometown of Keghi, Erzurum, Eastern Turkey.

A year earlier, a few thousand young Keghetsi men had immigrated to the US as general laborers in many North American industries. 

“They started to get word that the drafting of young Armenian men from the villages had begun, and the rumors were that they would be sent to the front lines without weapons. So, in his village they started trying to get some of the young men out.” says David's great granddaughter, Melissa Vartanian.

A view of Keghi. Photo via Houshamadyan.

Through the kindness of Turkish neighbors who gave David their deceased son’s papers so that he could leave the country, David walked for 7 days to Trebizond on the Black Sea and sailed to Marseilles, France, before boarding the Titanic at the port of Cherbourg as a third class passenger. His ticket number was 2658.

 Titanic at Cherbourg, April 10, 1912.

Four days into the journey, on April 14, just before midnight, the Titanic hit an iceberg. The collision was fatal and the ship began to sink. David had been playing card games and gone to bed. He was woken up in the middle of the night by a thud and was directed to the ship's back end.

He watched women and children board lifeboats, but as the number of boats left dwindled, it became apparent it was every person for themselves.

David made it to the boat deck and soon thereafter found himself with no other option than to jump from the Titanic. It was his 22nd birthday.

Back in Keghi, David had taught himself to swim in a nearby creek; he would later maintain that this incidental choice saved his life that night in the Atlantic.

David's great granddaughter, Melissa recalls;

“When the boat started to sink, David had always said that the 3rd class passengers were locked down in steerage, and they had to break the gates to get up. They did, and he eventually made it to the top deck and jumped from the boat and swam to a life boat.”

“When he got to the life boat he decided to just hang on to the side. The passengers on the boat feared he would try and get into the boat so they hit his hands with the oars, and they tried to drown him, in fear that if he got in the boat it would capsize.”

Because of the language barrier, it took the passengers a while to realize all he wanted was to hold on. When he passed out, they pulled him into the boat and then onto the HMS Carpathia rescue ship.

Photo of David Vartanian, taken by the Brantford Expositor Newspaper, 1912.

After being rescued and then treated for a few days in a New York hospital, David Vartanian moved on to Ontario, Canada. He got word that his wife’s village had been invaded by Turkish forces. He was led to believe that his beloved wife, Mary, was dead--inevitably killed in the genocide of the Armenian people.

David never gave up searching for her. He wrote letters to newspapers, churches, and relatives. Six years would pass. Finally a letter arrived saying Mary was alive.

Mary had fled her village during the genocide, but had returned to live with her sister. She herself, having heard of the disaster and nothing more, had believed that David had been killed in the sinking of the Titanic.

For the next 5 years, David would send money to Mary so she finally had enough to buy her way out of the country. According to the Vartanian family, Mary kept the gold coins and wore them in the form of a necklace. 

When the time had come for Mary to set sail, her family convinced her to leave the necklace behind because, as her daughter Rose Vartanian repeated decades on; “where you are going, the streets are paved with gold.”

She took a boat to Canada in 1923 and was taken to Niagra Falls by David’s friends.

“They told her to walk across the bridge, to keep a good pace, and not look back, because she was obviously entering the country illegally at the time." Melissa says.

When she made it across the Niagra Falls Bridge (commonly known as the Rainbow Bridge), David was at the other end of the Rainbow Bridge (on the American side) waiting for his lost bride. 

They had not seen each other for 11 years.

The Vartanians settled in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he was known locally as "Titanic David". They had 3 children. Jack, Rose and Alice. By the 1940s they had moved to Detroit, where David worked for the McLouth Steel company. 

For the rest of his life, David suffered from nerve damage in his legs, walking with a limp, a cane and a blue hue along his calves.

"The lower half of my grandfather’s body had a bluish tint from being in the frigid water for so long, and remained that way,” his grandson Greg told a newspaper in 2009. 

David died in 1966 at the age of 76. 

Ninety-seven years after the Titanic sunk, in 2009, David's great-granddaughter, Melissa Vartanian and her fiancé, Vache Mikaelian were married at the Milwaukee Museum’s “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” after the couple won a contest for a free wedding at the venue.

“Vache and I were engaged at the time and were planning a destination wedding. I looked up the contest, purely because the mention of the Titanic struck my interest,” Melissa said. 

“I read that the winning couple would get married in the Exhibit! So, I decided to apply.”

Melissa Vartanian, her husband Vache and her grandmother Rose Vartanian pose for a photo in 2009 at the Milwaukee Public Museum's Titanic Exhibit.

It’s no surprise they won, considering Vartanian’s great grandparents’ amazing tragedy and triumph on both sides of the Atlantic. 

“While I do agree that the sinking led to great loss and devastation, the Titanic was also a vessel of hope to so many that were fleeing persecution, or searching a better life." said Melissa.

"It was a tragedy, an absolute tragedy that happened. The difference for my family is that it was ultimately about hope and freedom. For my family, it brought life."