Violet Jessop was either the luckiest or unluckiest woman who ever lived, depending on your point of view. In any case, she has one of the most fascinating stories you'll ever read. Jessop began her work as a stewardess on ocean ships aboard the Orinoco in 1908 when she was 21 years old. She began her career with the White Star Line in 1910, when she boarded the HMS Olympic, one of the company's three Olympic class cruisers. The ship crashed with the British battleship HMS Hawke when traveling through a small strait a year later when Jessop was still working onboard. Despite the fact that both ships were damaged in the collision, neither ship was fully destroyed, and no one was killed. Violet worked on the RMS Titanic, a White Star Line ship and the Olympic's sister ship, while the Olympic was being repaired. When the Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk, Jessop was on board, but he was able to find a lifeboat and live. Despite her involvement in two marine mishaps, Jessop persevered and served as a Red Cross waitress on board the HMHS Britannic during World War I. When it drowned after colliding with a German mine in the Aegean Sea, it had been transformed into a hospital ship and was bringing sick soldiers to the United Kingdom. Jessop and several other passengers were almost pulled into the ship's propeller blades while evacuating on a lifeboat, but narrowly survived, solidifying her reputation as "Miss Unsinkable."
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