A sandstone heart shaped pendant with a gold plated chain
The last she saw of her husband was from the lifeboat. He was waving to her from the upper decks of Titanic . Florence Agnes Angle, who died in 1969 aged 93, never remarried. A brooch and pendant which the Titanic survivor and nurse cherished will come under the hammer at the next Lynes and Lynes auction in Co. Cork. Florence eventually settled in Leamington Spa in her native Warwickshire.
She did not talk about it a lot. But when in 1961 the Coventry Evening Telegraph reported the death of Finnish born Helga Hirvonen in New York – describing her as the last survivor of the Titanic – the elderly but feisty Mrs Angle went to the newspaper office to set the record straight. She was then a very much alive Titanic survivor and was certain that other living survivors were out there too. In an interview at that time she recounted how she had been asleep when Titanic hit the iceberg. Her husband woke her and told her to get dressed. Instead she went back to sleep. Woken up again by the commotion outside the cabin the couple went to the upper decks together. There she was separated from him and placed in a lifeboat.
A newspaper cutting reporting the death of Mrs. Angle
The story of Titanic is as potent as it ever was. Memorabilia and artefacts continue to command huge auction prices. A gold pocket watch recovered from the body of Macy’s co-owner Isidor Strauss made £1.78 million (€2.08 million) at Aldriges in Wiltshire last year. A letter written by his wife Ida on Titanic stationary and posted in Cobh (Queenstown) sold for £100,000 (€116,880). Denis Lynes has put more modest estimates of €5,000-€10,000 on a sandstone heart shaped pendant with a gold plated chain, emblematic of all the heartbreak and tragedy of the Titanic disaster, and on a c1900 gold pink tourmaline and half pearl brooch. Eat your hearts out Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Willed to an Irishwoman by Mrs. Angle the jewellery will come up as lots 349 and 350 at his sale in Carrigtwohill on August 29.
A c1900 pink tourmaline and half pearl brooch pendant.