a sinking scenario

LONDON - Millvina Dean. Now 96, the last survivor of the tragic Titanic sinking has resorted to selling mementos of the disaster to help pay her nursing home fees.

Proudly displaying an engraved silver flask with the initials JBK on it, Millvina reflected, "This is from a gentleman who was hanging on the railing screaming, "HELP! HELP!" I relieved him of it. I figured he didn't need it, as a wave washed over him the final time. He actually tried climbing back up several times. I was there. But, you know, those railings, with the salt water, so slippery," she said, gazing out her window, then shooting a quick, nervous look at the interviewer. "I should get at least 40 bucks for this."

After the Titanic, investigators think she may have started boarding ships and pushing people over after taking their stuff, for a living.



"These glasses I got from a 21-year old gymnast with bad eyesight. My earrings, from a 35-year old housewife on her way to Portugal." Smiling broadly, she continued, "My dentures are courtesy of an elderly man from Denmark in a wheelchair. We were watching the moon one night. It rolled so easily over the edge. He actually was never missed. No inquires, nothing. Now, I wish I had kept his wheelchair, and just tossed him overboard. I've sold over 50 sets of dentures, so far. But, I can't complain. Overall, I've earned a good living. Thank God for eBay!"

Her doctor is not sure if she has borderline Tourette's, or if she is just pissed off at the nursing home staff.

"I took a nice Rolex off Mr. Wilson. He has Alzheimer's and couldn't remember it was his. He kept asking me, 'Have you seen Mr. Allen's watch?' We don't even have a Mr. Allen here."

Rescued from the bitterly cold Atlantic on that April night, Dean, her brother and her mother were taken to New York and were given a small wicker suitcase of donated clothing and "a few other little items," she and her mother were able to nab before they were rescued. Now, Dean is selling the suitcase and other Titanic mementos to help pay her nursing home fees.

Some are skeptical that Dean was even on the Titanic, let alone about the Titanic memorabilia. "A K-Mart Waffle Zone waffle maker?" said a concerned patron of the arts. "Two packs of Mr. T's underwear? A Pez dispenser with a boat and a 'T' marked on it?"

Among the items are "rare prints" of the Titanic she picked up at Kinkos/FedEx copy center a little earlier that day, and "letters from the Titanic Relief. You can tell they're authentic," she assured. "They have 'sea water' marks on them. Very old sea water stains," she said, tossing a "letter" onto a stack kept next to her turtles' 30-gallon aquarium tank.

But the key item in the sale is the suitcase, said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge. "They would have carried their little world in this suitcase," he said Thursday.

Millvina just smiled as she quietly folded her credit card bill from Sears listing 56 suitcases purchased in the last month.

Dean resides at Woodlands Ridge, a private nursing home in the Titanic's home port city of Southampton.

"I am not able to live in my home anymore, since it was foreclosed on," Dean was quoted as telling the Southern Daily Echo newspaper. "I am selling it all now because I have to pay these nursing home fees and am selling anything that I think might fetch some money."

Several piles of lingerie from Victoria's Secret, Dean relabeled, Millvina's Titanic Majora Sexy Muffin Wear lay nearby.

A spokeswoman for Woodlands Ridge said Dean was too tired Thursday to speak to The Associated Press. "Being an entrepreneur, a girl's got to get her rest," she exclaimed with a wink.

She said rooms at the nursing home cost between $1,000 and $1,550 a week, depending on the level of care the resident needs. Dean's 12 rooms she subleases, although at a discounted rate, fetch $100 to $150 per client for 1 to 2 hour visits with women Dean only refers to as Millvina's girls. "I encourage the girls to bring in 5 or 6 clients a day but, you know, when they hit 75 they get lazy. I'm making a living but, it's hard," Millvina complained.

Local authorities often pay a portion of the costs of private nursing home care based on an individual's assets; who, ironically, happen to be among Dean's most active customers.

She has no memories of the sinking and said she preferred it that way.

"I wouldn't want to remember, really," she told The Associated Press in a 1997 interview. By coincidence, Dean lost most of her memory at 85.

Dean said she had seen the 1958 film, "A Night to Remember," with other survivors, but found it so upsetting that she declined to watch any other movies about the disaster. She did give rave reviews to a 2006 film, also called, A Night To Remember, starring Jenna Jameson, Jesse Jane and Aria Giovanni. "That one I watched a ten times," she said, pointing to several dozen of the DVDs neatly placed on her dresser, for which she's also a reseller.



As she was heading off on another boat cruise she passed a detective standing in the hall outside her room, brushing past him with a sneer.

Investigator Samuels: "How can we try a criminal who doesn't even remember her crimes? It would take $3 million to investigate and prosecute. Even if we convicted her, we're going to put her in prison for what, 3 weeks? She's 96!"