A submarine pilot’s husband is descended from a famous Titanic couple
Wendy Rush, the wife of Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate who piloted the submarine that disappeared Sunday while diving into the wreckage of the Titanic, is a descendant of two first-class passengers who died when the ocean liner sank in 1912, records show.
Mrs. Rush is a great-great-granddaughter of retail magnate Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, two of the richest people aboard the Titanic for its maiden voyage. Born in 1845, Mr. Straus was part owner of the department store Macy’s.
Born Wendy Hollings Weil, Mrs. Rush married Stockton Rush in 1986, according to a New York Times marriage announcement. Her LinkedIn page states that she has participated in three OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreck in the past two years; that she is the company’s communications director; and that she is a longtime board member of the company’s charitable foundation.
Ms Rush was not immediately available for comment on this item.
Mrs. Rush’s ancestors on the Titanic are perhaps best known for their tragic love story. Survivors of the disaster recalled seeing Isidor Straus refuse a seat on a lifeboat when women and children were still waiting to flee the sinking ship. Ida Straus, his wife of four decades, stated that she would not leave her husband, and the two were seen arm-in-arm on the deck of the Titanic as the ship sank.
A fictionalized version of the Strauses’ story was immortalized in pop culture by director James Cameron, whose 1997 film about the disaster with a gripping shot of an elderly couple embracing in bed as the water rises around their cabin.
Mrs. Rush is descended from one of the Strauses’ daughters, Minnie, who married Dr. Richard Weil married. Their son, Richard Weil Jr., later served as president of Macy’s New York, and his son, Dr. Richard Weil III, is Mrs. Rush’s father, according to Joan Adler, the executive director of the Straus Historical Society.
Isidor Straus’s body was found at sea about two weeks after the sinking of the Titanic. New York Times Archives show. Ida Straus’s remains have never been recovered.