In a few weeks it's going to be the one hundred and thirteenth anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Now, the thing is, people are still fascinated with the story and still intrigued by the backstories of the ship, the seven hundred and ten people who managed to survive, and the more than sixteen hundred who were lost in the twenty six degree water of the North Atlantic. There are so many stories, but one of the most interesting is the tale of two tiny boys who were the only children to survive without their parents. I'm Patty Steele, kidnapped by their own father, only to lose him on that frigid April night. That's next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. In the early part of the nineteen hundreds, the divorce rate in the United States was point seven out of one thousand marriages and point two out of one thousand in France. Today in the US it's four times as high. In France, ten times higher teen twelve. Divorce was incredibly rare and considered socially unacceptable. That brings us to the story of two very small French boys who had just survived their parents' divorce. Michelle Junior and Edmund Navtil were only four and two years old. Their father, Michelle Senior, was looking for a better life as a divorced man. His reputation had taken a hit, Plus he missed his little guys terribly. His ex wife, Marcel, had custody of the children, but she agreed to let her husband take them to spend time with him over Easter. This was his chance. Like a lot of European immigrants, he wanted to search for a better life in America. He decides to book passage on a ship under false names so the French police won't catch up with him. His plan probably would have worked. It was easy to disappear to a new place in those days. But the problem is he booked second class tickets on the RMS Titanic. Seemed daring and pretty excite to launch into a new life aboard the maiden voyage of the most talked about ship in the world until four days into that trip. Again, Michelle Junior was only four, but he later remembered the first few days as being a wonderful journey. Said Michel. I remember looking down the length of the hull. The ship looked splendid. My little brother and I played on the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. But on April fourteenth, just before midnight, the ship hit an enormous iceberg. One survivor said it looked like a mountain above water, even though seven eighths of the iceberg is actually below the water line. It took two hours and forty minutes for the ship to fully slip beneath the ocean and plunge more than twelve thousand feet to the bottom. In the meantime, people were scrambling to survive. Michelle Junior remembers his dad coming back into the cabin with another man. They bundled up the tiny boys and carried them down to the life boats. All the intrigue of the kidnapping of Michelle's Senior's sons was nothing compared to what they were about to face. The little guys got a last glimpse of their father as he dropped them into the lifeboat. Years later, Michele Junior said, the last thing their father said to him as a lifeboat was about to be lowered into the icy water, was my child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will tell her that I loved her dearly and still do tell her. I expected her to follow us so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the new world. Nice words, But he had changed all their names to travel across the ocean. So Michele Navertiel Senor perished in the frigid ocean at the age of thirty one. His little boys were the only children to survive the disaster without their parents or a guardian by their side. They suddenly became media darlings as much as you could in the days before radio or television. No one knew who they were, since they traveled under the false names their dad had given them. Oddly, four year old Michelle Junior was ticketed under the name Lewis and two year old Edmund was booked as Lola. The press called them the Titanic orphans. Reports said they answered any question from the French consul with a simple WII that means yes, because they were very distracted by the new toy boats. They had been given brilliant toy boats for kids who had just survived a shipping disaster. Okay, while authorites tried to track down any family, the boys stayed at the home of another survivor on New York City's Upper West Side. She came from a wealthy family, and her father spoke with reporters. They asked if the boys could be identified by tracking their tickets. Her father snottily replied, I have never traveled second cabin or steerage. I only traveled first class, so I don't know anything about such matters. That comment really showed the class divide in those days. Their survival rates aboard the Titanic also really highlight the difference of the three hundred twenty four first class travelers two hundred one survived, but only one hundred eighty one of the seven hundred and eight third class travelers made it off the ship alive. Even Michelle Junior realized that fact, saying later, there were vast differences of people's wealth on the ship, and I knew later that if we hadn't been in at least second class, we'd have died. Meanwhile, back in France, Marcel was frantically searching for her sons. She realized that Michelle Senior had disappeared with their little boys, but she had no idea where they were or that they had been on the Titanic newspaper articles about the boys in the United States had photographs of them. Finally, as those stories got published in Europe about a month later, marcell spotted one of the articles with a photograph of her little boys. She confirmed their identities with the authorities, and she immediately climbed aboard a ship That's Brave and made her way to America to fetch Michelle, Junior and Edmund in New York City. The families sailed back to France, where the so called Titanic Orphans would spend the rest of their lives. Michelle lived to be the oldest surviving male of the infamous shipwreck, passing on in two thousand and one at the age of ninety two. Little brother Edmund had died back in nineteen fifty three, not the new life their father had hoped for. Hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele, Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. And by the way, feel free to DM me if you have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeart Media, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.

In a few weeks it's going to be the one hundred and thirteenth anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Now, the thing is, people are still fascinated with the story and still intrigued by the backstories of the ship, the seven hundred and ten people who managed to survive, and the more than sixteen hundred who were lost in the twenty six degree water of the North Atlantic. There are so many stories, but one of the most interesting is the tale of two tiny boys who were the only children to survive without their parents. I'm Patty Steele, kidnapped by their own father, only to lose him on that frigid April night. That's next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. In the early part of the nineteen hundreds, the divorce rate in the United States was point seven out of one thousand marriages and point two out of one thousand in France. Today in the US it's four times as high. In France, ten times higher teen twelve. Divorce was incredibly rare and considered socially unacceptable. That brings us to the story of two very small French boys who had just survived their parents' divorce. Michelle Junior and Edmund Navtil were only four and two years old. Their father, Michelle Senior, was looking for a better life as a divorced man. His reputation had taken a hit, Plus he missed his little guys terribly. His ex wife, Marcel, had custody of the children, but she agreed to let her husband take them to spend time with him over Easter. This was his chance. Like a lot of European immigrants, he wanted to search for a better life in America. He decides to book passage on a ship under false names so the French police won't catch up with him. His plan probably would have worked. It was easy to disappear to a new place in those days. But the problem is he booked second class tickets on the RMS Titanic. Seemed daring and pretty excite to launch into a new life aboard the maiden voyage of the most talked about ship in the world until four days into that trip. Again, Michelle Junior was only four, but he later remembered the first few days as being a wonderful journey. Said Michel. I remember looking down the length of the hull. The ship looked splendid. My little brother and I played on the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. But on April fourteenth, just before midnight, the ship hit an enormous iceberg. One survivor said it looked like a mountain above water, even though seven eighths of the iceberg is actually below the water line. It took two hours and forty minutes for the ship to fully slip beneath the ocean and plunge more than twelve thousand feet to the bottom. In the meantime, people were scrambling to survive. Michelle Junior remembers his dad coming back into the cabin with another man. They bundled up the tiny boys and carried them down to the life boats. All the intrigue of the kidnapping of Michelle's Senior's sons was nothing compared to what they were about to face. The little guys got a last glimpse of their father as he dropped them into the lifeboat. Years later, Michele Junior said, the last thing their father said to him as a lifeboat was about to be lowered into the icy water, was my child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will tell her that I loved her dearly and still do tell her. I expected her to follow us so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the new world. Nice words, But he had changed all their names to travel across the ocean. So Michele Navertiel Senor perished in the frigid ocean at the age of thirty one. His little boys were the only children to survive the disaster without their parents or a guardian by their side. They suddenly became media darlings as much as you could in the days before radio or television. No one knew who they were, since they traveled under the false names their dad had given them. Oddly, four year old Michelle Junior was ticketed under the name Lewis and two year old Edmund was booked as Lola. The press called them the Titanic orphans. Reports said they answered any question from the French consul with a simple WII that means yes, because they were very distracted by the new toy boats. They had been given brilliant toy boats for kids who had just survived a shipping disaster. Okay, while authorites tried to track down any family, the boys stayed at the home of another survivor on New York City's Upper West Side. She came from a wealthy family, and her father spoke with reporters. They asked if the boys could be identified by tracking their tickets. Her father snottily replied, I have never traveled second cabin or steerage. I only traveled first class, so I don't know anything about such matters. That comment really showed the class divide in those days. Their survival rates aboard the Titanic also really highlight the difference of the three hundred twenty four first class travelers two hundred one survived, but only one hundred eighty one of the seven hundred and eight third class travelers made it off the ship alive. Even Michelle Junior realized that fact, saying later, there were vast differences of people's wealth on the ship, and I knew later that if we hadn't been in at least second class, we'd have died. Meanwhile, back in France, Marcel was frantically searching for her sons. She realized that Michelle Senior had disappeared with their little boys, but she had no idea where they were or that they had been on the Titanic newspaper articles about the boys in the United States had photographs of them. Finally, as those stories got published in Europe about a month later, marcell spotted one of the articles with a photograph of her little boys. She confirmed their identities with the authorities, and she immediately climbed aboard a ship That's Brave and made her way to America to fetch Michelle, Junior and Edmund in New York City. The families sailed back to France, where the so called Titanic Orphans would spend the rest of their lives. Michelle lived to be the oldest surviving male of the infamous shipwreck, passing on in two thousand and one at the age of ninety two. Little brother Edmund had died back in nineteen fifty three, not the new life their father had hoped for. Hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele, Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. And by the way, feel free to DM me if you have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeart Media, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.