SMALL WORLD

Wife of Sub Company CEO Descended From Titanic Victims

Wendy Rush’s great-great-grandfather was a co-owner of Macy’s when he and his wife died at sea.

The wife of the pilot of the submersible lost at the bottom of the sea is descended from two victims of the Titanic wreck whose tragic story was featured in the movie blockbuster, The New York Times reports. Wendy Rush is married to Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the company behind current expedition. Her great-great-grandfather was Isidor Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, who was on the Titanic’s maiden voyage. He reportedly refused to board a lifeboat before women and children, and his wife, Ida, refused to leave without him—so they perished on the deck as the ocean liner sank. Wendy Rush has traveled to the wreck three times in the last two years. Brett Gladstone, whose great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather are also the Strauses, told The Daily Beast that such expeditions should be regulated. “My great-great-grandfather’s body was found floating with a locket around his neck that the family still has, but my great-great-grandmother’s body was never found,” Gladstone said. “So, her body lays down there today—the site is a graveyard for my great-great-grandmother and so many others. I’m a little bit uncomfortable with people making money over diving down and spending what I understand to be a quarter of a million dollars to go down in these submersibles—because it is a graveyard and it should be treated as such.”