Titanic's Real Love Story: Isidor & Ida Straus

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Titanic Sinking, engraving by Willy Stöwer.

Isidor and Ida Straus. c1910.

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Isidor Straus (February 6, 1845 – April 15, 1912) was a Bavarian-born American businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He died with his wife, Ida, in the sinking of the Titanic.

Early life ~

Straus was born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in the former Palatinate, then ruled by the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was the first of five children of Lazarus Straus (1809–1898) and his second wife and first cousin, Sara Straus (1823–1876). His siblings were Hermine (1846–1922), Nathan (1848–1931), Jakob Otto (1849–1851) and Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). In 1854 he and his family immigrated to the United States, following his father, Lazarus, who immigrated two years before. They settled first in Columbus, Georgia, and then lived in Talbotton, Georgia, where their house still exists today. He was preparing to go to the United States Military Academy at West Point when the outbreak of the American Civil War prevented him from doing so. In 1861, he was elected an officer in a Confederate military unit but was not allowed to serve because of his youth; in 1863, he went to England to secure ships for blockade running. Straus worked as an aide to a London-based Confederate agent while living in England, as well as a Confederate bond salesman in both London and Amsterdam.

Career ~

After the Civil War, they moved to New York City, where Lazarus convinced Rowland Hussey Macy, founder of Macy's, to allow L. Straus & Sons to open a crockery department in the basement of his store.

Rowland Hussey Macy.

Isidor Straus worked at L. Straus & Sons, which became the glass and china department at Macy's. In 1888, he and Nathan Straus became partners of Macy's. In 1893 he and his brother bought a controlling interest in Wechsler & Straus, renamed Abraham & Straus. By 1896, Isidor and his brother Nathan had gained full ownership of R. H. Macy & Co.

Ida Straus.

Marriage and children ~

In 1871, Isidor Straus married Rosalie Ida Blun (1849–1912). They were parents to seven children (one of whom died in infancy):

~ Jesse Isidor Straus (1872–1936), who married Irma Nathan (1877–1970), and served as U.S. Ambassador to France, 1933–1936.

~ Clarence Elias Straus (1874–1876), who died in infancy.

~ Percy Selden Straus (1876–1944), who married Edith Abraham (1882–1957), daughter of Abraham Abraham.

~ Sara Straus (1878–1960), who married Dr. Alfred Fabian Hess (1875–1933).

~ Minnie Straus (1880–1940), who married Dr. Richard Weil (1876–1917).

~ Herbert Nathan Straus (1881–1933), who married Therese Kuhn in 1907 (1884–1977).

~ Vivian Straus (1886–1967) first married Herbert Adolph Scheftel (1875–1914) with whom she had two of her three children and second, in 1917, married George A. Dixon Jr. (1891–1956).

Among his great-great-granddaughters are singer Mikaela Mullaney Straus, known by her stage name King Princess, and Wendy Rush (née Weil), the widow of Stockton Rush who founded the deep sea tourism company OceanGate and lost his life on a dive in a submersible in 2023 to the wreck of the Titanic.

Mikaela Mullaney Straus, King Princess during her tour in Sept. 2018.

Stockton and Wendy Rush.

Political career ~

Straus served as a U.S. Congressman from January 30, 1894, to March 3, 1895, as a Democratic representative of New York's 15th congressional district. He won a special election in January 1894 to complete the term of Ashbel P. Fitch, who had resigned to become New York City Comptroller. Straus did not run for re-election in the general election of November 1894. Also, Straus was president of The Educational Alliance and a prominent worker in charitable and educational movements, very much interested in civil service reform and the general extension of education. He declined the office of Postmaster General which was offered him by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

Grover Cleveland.

When the newly formed Mutual Alliance Trust Company opened for business in New York on the Tuesday after June 29, 1902, there were 13 directors, including Emanuel Lehman, William Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Straus.

Death on the Titanic ~

Traveling back from a winter in Europe, mostly spent at Cape Martin in southern France, Isidor and his wife were passengers on the Titanic when, at about 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, it hit an iceberg. Once it was clear the Titanic was sinking, Ida refused to leave Isidor and would not get into a lifeboat without him. According to friend and Titanic survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, when he offered to ask an officer if Isidor could enter a lifeboat with Ida, Isidor refused to be made an exception while women and children were still on board, while Ida is reported to have said, "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so we will die, together." Ida gave her maid her fur coat and insisted she get into a lifeboat. Isidor and Ida were last seen on deck arm in arm; eyewitnesses described the scene as a "most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion". The ship sank at 2:20 am.

The Sad Parting, illustration of 1912.

Isidor's body was recovered by CS Mackay-Bennett and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from there shipped to New York. He was first buried in the Straus-Kohns Mausoleum at Beth-El Cemetery in Brooklyn, he was then moved to the Straus Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in 1928. Ida's body was never found, so the family collected water from the wreck site and placed it in an urn in the mausoleum. Isidor and Ida are memorialized on a cenotaph outside the mausoleum with a quote from the Song of Solomon (8:7): "Many waters cannot quench love—neither can the floods drown it."

Memorials ~

In addition to the cenotaph at Woodlawn Cemetery, there are three other memorials to Isidor and Ida Straus in their adopted home of New York City:

A memorial plaque can be seen on the main floor of Macy's Department Store in Manhattan.

The Ida and Isidor Straus Memorial Plaque mounted in Manhattan’s Macy’s.

The Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial is located in Straus Park, at the intersection of Broadway and West End Avenue at 106th Street (Duke Ellington Boulevard) in Manhattan. The park is one block from where they resided at 105th Street and West End Avenue (now the site of the Cleburne Building). An inscription reads, "Lovely and pleasant they were in their lives, and in death they were not divided." (2 Samuel 1:23).

Dedication of Straus Memorial, April 15, 1915.

New York City Public School P.S. 198, built in Manhattan in 1959, is named in memory of Isidor and Ida Straus. The building, at Third Avenue between East 95th and 96th Streets, shares space with another school, P.S. 77.

P.S. 198M The Isidor and Ida Straus School, 96th Street and Third Avenue, NYC.

Straus Hall, one of Harvard's freshman residence halls in Harvard Yard, was given in honor of the Strauses by their three sons.

Straus Hall, Harvard College.

In popular culture ~

The couple are portrayed in the 1953 film Titanic, the 1958 film A Night to Remember, and in the musical Titanic, in scenes that are faithful to the accounts described above. In the 1979 film S.O.S. Titanic, Ida and Isidor are shown, however the film deviates from the accounts and has Ida tell Isidor that she plans to "stay a little while." In the 1997 film Titanic, the Strauses are briefly depicted (despite there being no evidence they returned to their cabin and despite the fact that Isidor's body was later recovered) kissing and holding each other on their bed as their stateroom floods with water, during a sequence of emotional events while the ship's string quartet plays the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee". A deleted scene, in harmony with the accounts of rescued survivors, shows Isidor (played by Lew Palter) attempting to persuade Ida (played by Elsa Raven) to enter a lifeboat, which she refuses to do.

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Wedding Photo of the Strauses, in 1871.

Isidor and Ida Straus at the Folies Bergere in Paris 1907.

Isidor and Ida Straus, c.1910.

A drawing of Isidor and Ida's last moments together aboard the Titanic.

Lazarus Straus. Isidor's father.

Lazarus Straus.

Lazarus Straus.

Sara Straus Straus. Isidor's mother.

Sara Straus.

The children of Isidor and Ida Straus.

Sissie, Minnie, Vivian, and Sara Straus, the daughters of Nathan and Isidor Straus.

Isidor and Nathain Straus.

Percy Straus. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report by Harvard University Class of 1897.

A hall in Nathan Straus Health Center in the late 1920s.

Herbert, Jesse, and Percy in Red Bank, N.J. (1920).

Herbert Straus.

Isidor and Ida Straus' 25th Anniversary, July 12, 1896.

Isidor and Ida Straus with their family in Elberon, N.J. (September 1905).

Isidor and Oscar Straus as children.

Jesse Isidor Straus (1872-1936), American ambassador to France, in 1933.

Jesse, Percy and Herbert with their male children in Red Bank, N.J. (1920).

King Princess performing at Royale in Boston, Massachusetts, 2018.

Lazarus and Sara Straus, c. 1860.

Nathan Straus on March 7, 1922. Isidor's brother.

Oscar Solomon Straus. Isidor's brother.

Nathan, Oscar, and Isidor Straus.

Sara Hess.

Sara Straus Hess family.

Vivian Straus Dixon.

The cradle the Strauses used in Germany.

The Straus' House in Otterberg, Germany.

The Straus' House in Talbotton, Georgia.

The Straus' house in Talbotton, Georgia as it looks today.

Sunnyside, Isidor and Ida Straus' House in Elberon, N.J.

Isidor and Ida Straus' Home on Broadway at West 105th Street in NYC.

Collinsworth Institute where the Straus children attended school.

Captain Edward Smith in 1911. Capt. Smith was Titanic's commander. He did not survive the disaster.

Colonel Archibald Gracie. A survivor who would die only a few years later.

Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Emanuel Lehman (1828-1907).

William Rockefeller (1841-1922), American financier.

Isidor Straus, Dem. Rep. of New York, William Wilson, Dem. Rep of West Virginia, and Clifton R. Brekinridge, Dem. Rep. of Arkansas.

London paperboy Ned Parfett outside the White Star Line offices. He would die a few years later while serving in World War I.

1902 illustration of Macy's new store at 34th Street and Herald Square in New York City.

Delivery wagons.

Macy's Opening Day - November 1902. Isidor seated.

Early Macy's store located at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City.

Macy's in Herald Square in 1907.

Macy's Herald Square.

The Macy's West flagship store in San Francisco, the former O'Connor, Moffat & Co. flagship (closing in 2025).

Exterior of a typical ex-Marshall Field's suburban Macy's store at Westfield Hawthorn in Vernon Hills, Illinois.

The memorial dedication of Straus Park, April 15, 1915.

Straus Park (1915).

106th Street memorial, Straus Park.

Floats from the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

A replica of the pushcart used by Lazarus Straus in Georgia.

From a Yiddish Penny Song, an angel blessing busts of Isidor and Ida Strauss.

Lazarus Straus death certificate.

Pocket watch retrieved from the wreck site, stopped showing a time of 2;28.

The cable ship Mackay-Bennett.

Titanic sank in two hours and 40 minutes.

Wreck of the Titanic, 2004.

Sara Straus engagement announcement.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle,Brooklyn, New York · Saturday, January 15, 1898

Titanic on sea trials, 2 April 1912

Copy of a cover of the sheet music for the song 'The Titanic's Disaster', written in 1912.

The iceberg.

Sinking of the Titanic by Henry Reuterdahl.

Lifeboat No. 15 was nearly lowered onto lifeboat No. 13 (depicted by Charles Dixon).

Lifeboat 6 under capacity. Ida was suppose to be on a lifeboat. However, she decided to stay aboard the ship with Isidor.

Nearer, My God, To Thee – cartoon of 1912.

Illustration of the sinking of the Titanic.

Imagined view of Titanic's final plunge.

Arrival of the 'ship of sorrow' at New York by L.F. Grant, 1912.

Treemap showing numbers of passengers and crew by class, and whether men, women or children, and whether saved or lost.

And no, they did not go back to their cabin to die as the 1997 movie, Titanic, shows. The Straus' were last seen on deck waiting for the end.

The memorial service held for Isidor and Ida Straus (1912).

Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York). Northeastern gatehouse.

The Straus Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.

The Straus' Myosotis Plot in the Straus Mausoleum, Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.

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1953

1997

1958

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