Isidor and Ida Straus

 

February 14 - Valentine's Day. The day we show how much we love someone by valentine cards, roses, a box of candy, expensive jewelry, etc.  It is a very special day of expressing our love.

 

A love story that I enjoy is the story of Isidor and Ida Straus.
 

Isidor and Ida were married in 1871. He was the co-owner of Macy's Department Store in New York.

 

Traveling back from a winter in Europe, mostly spent at Cape Martin in southern France, Isidor and his wife, Ida, were passengers on the Titanic when, on April 14, 1912, it hit an iceberg. Once it was clear that the Titanic was sinking, Ida refused to leave Isidor and would not get into a lifeboat. Although Isidor was offered a seat in a lifeboat too, he refused seating while there were still women and children aboard.

 

Ida insisted her newly hired English maid, Ellen Bird, get into lifeboat #8. She gave Ellen her fur coat stating she would not be needing it. Ida is reported to have said, "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die, together." Isidor and Ida were last seen on deck arm in arm.

 

Eyewitnesses described the scene as a "most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion." Both died on April 15th when the ship sank. Isidor Straus' body was recovered.  He is buried in the Straus Mausoleum in the Bronx. His gravestone serves as a cenotaph for his wife and bears the inscription:

 

"Many waters cannot quench love - neither can the floods drown it."

 

 

 

 

What a wonderful story of love and unselfishness.

To love unselfishly is hard sometimes. I think how God loved us so unselfishly that He gave His only son, Jesus,  to die for our sins so that we could be saved and have a way to Heaven.