I was in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a couple of days ago and stopped by the Church of the Redeemer cemetery to visit some old friends.

Three members of the Thayer family—railroad executive John B. Thayer II, his wife Marian, and their son John (Jack)—were First Class passengers on Titanic.

Sadly, John B. Thayer II perished in the sinking and his body was not among those recovered. Marian survived in Lifeboat 4 and lived another 32 years, passing on the anniversary of her husband’s death.

Jack, just 17 years old on Titanic, was one of the surviving passengers who didn’t leave the ship in a lifeboat. He leaped into the ocean and swam to the overturned Collapsible B, where he spent the night balancing on its keel with a couple of dozen other survivors. He witnessed Titanic’s breakup and depicted it in a series of sketches he created with Carpathia passenger and artist Lewis Skidmore. It was an early account of the ship breaking in two.

Thayers buried here include: Marian; four of John and Marian’s children—Jack and his siblings Frederick (1896–1956), Pauline (1901–1981), and infant Marian (1893–1894); Jack’s wife Lois (1894–1977); three of Jack and Lois’s children—John IV (1918–1987), Edward (1921–1943) who was killed in action in the South Pacific, and infant Alexander (1920).