Lillian Asplund
Lillian Asplund was a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic and the last living American survivor.
Synopsis
In 1907, Lillian Asplund's family traveled to Sweden to settle their grandfather's estate. Afterward, the family boarded the Titanic on April 10, 1912, for the voyage home. After the crash, Lillian, her mother and her brother Felix were rescued aboard lifeboat 15. Her father and three other brothers, including her twin, Carl, perished in the sinking. She was the last American survivor.
Titanic and Aftermath
Titanic survivor Lillian Gertrud Asplund was born on October 21, 1906, in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1907, the Asplund family traveled to Sweden to settle their grandfather's estate. Eager to return to the United States, where Lillian's father worked at Spencer Wire Works, the family boarded the Titanic on April 10, 1912, for the voyage home.
After the crash, Lillian, her mother, and her brother Felix were rescued aboard lifeboat 15. Her father and three other brothers, including her twin Carl, perished in the sinking. The surviving members of Lillian's family lived with her aunt and uncle. A community fundraiser was held in their honor, and they eventually moved to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
Lillian Asplund worked as a secretary and cared for her elderly mother, who lived to be 90. Neither Lillian nor her brother ever married or had children. She was the last American survivor and last living survivor who had actual memories of the disaster, but she declined to discuss it, as had her mother. She died on May 6, 2006, in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
