One hundred years ago, a young missionary couple named Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were coming home after 3 years in Siam (now known as Thailand). The tropical climate had taken a toll on Sylvia’s health, and, with their 10-month-old son, they began the long journey home traveling by ship from Southeast Asia to Naples, Italy. There they saw an ad for a new luxury liner that was about to make its maiden voyage from England to America. So they booked passage on the Titanic.
In her new book, A Rare Titanic Family, the Caldwells’ Story of Survival, Alabama author and Samford University professor Julie Hedgepeth Williams relates the story her great uncle Albert told her as a child. She spoke with Greg Bass about the night the Titanic went down.