15. Isador Straus and Rosalie Ida Blun
Isador Straus, born in Germany, emigrated to America and served the Confederacy during the American Civil War. After the war his father, Lazarus Straus, opened a crockery department at R. H. Macy and Company. Their crockery sold well, and by 1888 Isador and his brother Nathan became full partners in Macy’s. Isador had by then married Rosalie Ida Blun, known simply as Ida, and the couple raised their six children (a seventh died in infancy) in New York. In 1896 Isador and Nathan achieved full control of Macy’s. Isador traveled frequently, both on company business and during a term in Congress. Ida traveled with him when she could, when she did not the couple wrote letters to each other daily. Friends and acquaintances called them exceptionally close.
They spent the winter of 1911-12 in the South of France, touring other countries in the early spring, before boarding a ship for home. The ship was RMS Titanic. Eyewitness accounts reported as the ship was sinking Isador and Ida were offered seats in Lifeboat 8. Isador refused to enter the boat while there were still women and children aboard the sinking liner. He urged his wife to board, but she refused, telling him, “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go”. They had then been married 41 years. Both perished together, last seen on the boat deck, arms entwined. Isador’s body was recovered, though Ida’s was not. A cenotaph in their name is in Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, New York.
Read More: 12 Famous People Who Didn’t Board the Titanic.
