Speaker 1: In a few weeks it's going to be the one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirteenth anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing is, people are still fascinated with the story
Speaker 1: and still intrigued by the backstories of the ship, the
Speaker 1: seven hundred and ten people who managed to survive, and
Speaker 1: the more than sixteen hundred who were lost in the
Speaker 1: twenty six degree water of the North Atlantic. There are
Speaker 1: so many stories, but one of the most interesting is
Speaker 1: the tale of two tiny boys who were the only
Speaker 1: children to survive without their parents. I'm Patty Steele, kidnapped
Speaker 1: by their own father, only to lose him on that
Speaker 1: frigid April night. That's next on the backstory. We're back
Speaker 1: with the backstory. In the early part of the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the divorce rate in the United States was point seven
Speaker 1: out of one thousand marriages and point two out of
Speaker 1: one thousand in France. Today in the US it's four
Speaker 1: times as high. In France, ten times higher teen twelve.
Speaker 1: Divorce was incredibly rare and considered socially unacceptable. That brings
Speaker 1: us to the story of two very small French boys
Speaker 1: who had just survived their parents' divorce. Michelle Junior and
Speaker 1: Edmund Navtil were only four and two years old. Their father,
Speaker 1: Michelle Senior, was looking for a better life as a
Speaker 1: divorced man. His reputation had taken a hit, Plus he
Speaker 1: missed his little guys terribly. His ex wife, Marcel, had
Speaker 1: custody of the children, but she agreed to let her
Speaker 1: husband take them to spend time with him over Easter.
Speaker 1: This was his chance. Like a lot of European immigrants,
Speaker 1: he wanted to search for a better life in America.
Speaker 1: He decides to book passage on a ship under false
Speaker 1: names so the French police won't catch up with him.
Speaker 1: His plan probably would have worked. It was easy to
Speaker 1: disappear to a new place in those days. But the
Speaker 1: problem is he booked second class tickets on the RMS Titanic.
Speaker 1: Seemed daring and pretty excite to launch into a new
Speaker 1: life aboard the maiden voyage of the most talked about
Speaker 1: ship in the world until four days into that trip. Again,
Speaker 1: Michelle Junior was only four, but he later remembered the
Speaker 1: first few days as being a wonderful journey. Said Michel.
Speaker 1: I remember looking down the length of the hull. The
Speaker 1: ship looked splendid. My little brother and I played on
Speaker 1: the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. But
Speaker 1: on April fourteenth, just before midnight, the ship hit an
Speaker 1: enormous iceberg. One survivor said it looked like a mountain
Speaker 1: above water, even though seven eighths of the iceberg is
Speaker 1: actually below the water line. It took two hours and
Speaker 1: forty minutes for the ship to fully slip beneath the
Speaker 1: ocean and plunge more than twelve thousand feet to the bottom.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, people were scrambling to survive. Michelle Junior
Speaker 1: remembers his dad coming back into the cabin with another man.
Speaker 1: They bundled up the tiny boys and carried them down
Speaker 1: to the life boats. All the intrigue of the kidnapping
Speaker 1: of Michelle's Senior's sons was nothing compared to what they
Speaker 1: were about to face. The little guys got a last
Speaker 1: glimpse of their father as he dropped them into the lifeboat.
Speaker 1: Years later, Michele Junior said, the last thing their father
Speaker 1: said to him as a lifeboat was about to be
Speaker 1: lowered into the icy water, was my child, when your
Speaker 1: mother comes for you, as she surely will tell her
Speaker 1: that I loved her dearly and still do tell her.
Speaker 1: I expected her to follow us so that we might
Speaker 1: all live happily together in the peace and freedom of
Speaker 1: the new world. Nice words, But he had changed all
Speaker 1: their names to travel across the ocean. So Michele Navertiel
Speaker 1: Senor perished in the frigid ocean at the age of
Speaker 1: thirty one. His little boys were the only children to
Speaker 1: survive the disaster without their parents or a guardian by
Speaker 1: their side. They suddenly became media darlings as much as
Speaker 1: you could in the days before radio or television. No
Speaker 1: one knew who they were, since they traveled under the
Speaker 1: false names their dad had given them. Oddly, four year
Speaker 1: old Michelle Junior was ticketed under the name Lewis and
Speaker 1: two year old Edmund was booked as Lola. The press
Speaker 1: called them the Titanic orphans. Reports said they answered any
Speaker 1: question from the French consul with a simple WII that
Speaker 1: means yes, because they were very distracted by the new
Speaker 1: toy boats. They had been given brilliant toy boats for
Speaker 1: kids who had just survived a shipping disaster. Okay, while
Speaker 1: authorites tried to track down any family, the boys stayed
Speaker 1: at the home of another survivor on New York City's
Speaker 1: Upper West Side. She came from a wealthy family, and
Speaker 1: her father spoke with reporters. They asked if the boys
Speaker 1: could be identified by tracking their tickets. Her father snottily replied,
Speaker 1: I have never traveled second cabin or steerage. I only
Speaker 1: traveled first class, so I don't know anything about such matters.
Speaker 1: That comment really showed the class divide in those days.
Speaker 1: Their survival rates aboard the Titanic also really highlight the
Speaker 1: difference of the three hundred twenty four first class travelers
Speaker 1: two hundred one survived, but only one hundred eighty one
Speaker 1: of the seven hundred and eight third class travelers made
Speaker 1: it off the ship alive. Even Michelle Junior realized that fact,
Speaker 1: saying later, there were vast differences of people's wealth on
Speaker 1: the ship, and I knew later that if we hadn't
Speaker 1: been in at least second class, we'd have died. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: back in France, Marcel was frantically searching for her sons.
Speaker 1: She realized that Michelle Senior had disappeared with their little boys,
Speaker 1: but she had no idea where they were or that
Speaker 1: they had been on the Titanic newspaper articles about the
Speaker 1: boys in the United States had photographs of them. Finally,
Speaker 1: as those stories got published in Europe about a month later,
Speaker 1: marcell spotted one of the articles with a photograph of
Speaker 1: her little boys. She confirmed their identities with the authorities,
Speaker 1: and she immediately climbed aboard a ship That's Brave and
Speaker 1: made her way to America to fetch Michelle, Junior and
Speaker 1: Edmund in New York City. The families sailed back to France,
Speaker 1: where the so called Titanic Orphans would spend the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives. Michelle lived to be the oldest surviving
Speaker 1: male of the infamous shipwreck, passing on in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one at the age of ninety two. Little brother
Speaker 1: Edmund had died back in nineteen fifty three, not the
Speaker 1: new life their father had hoped for. Hope you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the backstory with Patty Steele, Follow or subscribe for free
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Speaker 1: feel free to DM me if you have a story
Speaker 1: you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele
Speaker 1: and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The
Speaker 1: Backstory is a production of iHeart Media, Premiere Networks, the
Speaker 1: Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes
Speaker 1: every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to
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Speaker 1: for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces
Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know.