Memorial ceremony at the DC Titanic memorial, plus some DC LGBTQ history (pics)

[Recursion]

Hi all,

I just got back from a wonderful memorial ceremony at the DC Titanic memorial where I got to play a tiny role in DC LGBTQ history, so I thought I would share the story and some photos.

So the Titanic memorial is one of the least-known memorials in DC, which is a shame because it's so nice. It's located on the Waterfront, near the new Nationals stadium (go Nats). It was built in 1931, and it looks like this:



Here's the plaque under it:



Very moving.

There's a little memorial every year, but this being the centenary of the disaster, this was a little bigger than most. For instance, the DCFD fire boats did a salute:



Also, there was a little bag with a candle (electric, so that we don't turn a memorial of one disaster into a new disaster) for every person on board the Titanic who perished. There were some names you might know, eg:



And some you might not, such as:



(Yes, go ahead, chuckle, especially since I mentioned this is an LGBTQ history post and you can all guess where this is going. But, hey, I didn't pick the guy's name.)

I was looking for Archibald Butt because he and his "lifelong affectionate housemate and partner", to use the Edwardian periphrasis Butt himself used, both perished on the Titanic, having been seen helping women and children onto lifeboats before the end, rather than taking a place themselves. I was looking for the candles for Butt and his husband/partner/whatever Frank Millet, because after the Titanic sank a bunch of DC society-types built a fountain in their memory on the Ellipse. It's still there, near the big gold flaming sword memorializing the 1st Division:



The soldier on that side represents Butt; on the opposite side is an artist representing Millet: Millet was an accomplished painter and friend of John Singer Sargent. Here's one of his paintings:



My girlfriend and I had been wondering for awhile what this "Butt-Millet Fountain" was, and finally looked it up, and for some reason we were really touched by the story. We wanted to make sure we found their candles tonight. We found Archibald's pretty quickly (it was on the grass by where you enter the park), but we were looking high and low for Millet and couldn't find him.

While we were searching through the thousands of candles, we ran across an old woman also looking. She asked who we were looking for, and to our surprise she was looking for Millet too: her husband (who was towards the entrance and was too old to walk around the park very much) had been taught by Millet's grandson at the art school in Massachusetts that Millet founded, and he really wanted to see the candle and bring a photo back to the grandson, still kicking in his early 100's at this point (Millet was a Civil War veteran, to give some sense of the time scale here).

We walked back to the front and met the husband, who had met Sargent as a kid, and heard a few stories (he too was very euphemistic about Millet and Butt's relationship, but he did say "I'm glad people know".) After scrambling all over the park, we finally found Millet on the far end, near the bushes around the statue:



I found the older woman, took her arm, and escorted her across the park to the spot (my girlfriend called that scene "a little too precious&quot and took her photo with the candle for her, her husband, and the centegenarian grandson.

Something still seemed wrong, though. My girlfriend turned to me and said "Millet found his family, so I think we should bring Archibald over here." Going into "Mission: Impossible" mode, we walked back to where Archibald's candle was. My girlfriend "accidentally dropped" her sweater, and when she picked it back up there just happened to be an electric candle bag wrapped up in it. We casually walked back to Millet's candle. Millet's remains were recovered from the sea, but Butt's were never found. 100 years later, they were together at last:



Then we watched some of the pictures they were projecting on the walls of the apartments next to the park (sorry to anybody who lives there...) And, the Nats won. All in all, not a bad night in DC.

[elleng]

1. Lovely story, Recursion,

thanks for what you did AND you beat me to THE NATS WON!!!

[Recursion]

5. Thanks. It's kind of like that Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness thread

Millet was a Civil War veteran and his grandson, who was 2 years old when the Titanic sank, got the photo of the candle by email earlier today. That's just astounding to me.

[JHB]

2. So the "I'm king of the world" pose dates to 1931? Who knew?

Kidding aside, thanks for posting this.

[Recursion]

3. Ha. Funny you should mention that

Cameron has said that he put that pose in the movie because he (wrongly) assumed everybody was a Titanic afficionado like he is and already associated that pose with the Titanic because of the memorial. When in fact, almost nobody has heard of the memorial and when they see it they assume it was built after the movie came out. Sort of a "Leonard Cohen covering Jeff Buckley" kind of thing...

[DCKit]

4. You really did the right thing... too sweet.

Wish I'd known. Could'a taken the S.O. out for a walk. We're all of three blocks away from the memorial.

[Recursion]

6. I hadn't been back there since the new stadium went up

I had been worried that it would be overwhelmed with people every game night, but it really is kind of screened off from stadium traffic, fortunately. It's one of those memorials that you want people to know about but then again you don't because you want to keep it a little out-of-the-way. The DC WWI memorial (the bandstand between Lincoln and FDR/MLK) is like that too.

[DCKit]

7. We're living comfortably with the $600 million, taxpayer bought stadium.

Getting around on Metro on weekday game nights is a total bitch, but the eye-candy makes up for it (so I've heard).

Our issue is that they quit shooting off fireworks every other Friday night. The S.O.'s apartment has a great view, and we both love fireworks. Apparently a lot of our neighbors are cranky, in bed by 8 p.m. and complain... a lot.

We thought, for the money it cost us, we should at least get to see a good show twice a month during baseball season.

Did you check out our new Safeway, by any chance? The Z-Burger? With the development down here, I can't believe I'm going to have to take a hit when I sell my place.

[Recursion]

8. I remember when we called that the "Unsafeway"

Or was that the one on Benning Road? But, yeah, it's amazing how that area has developed, and I'm a big fan of Z Burger. I'm astounded anybody would take a hit selling there.

[KBlagburn]

9. Archi Butt was good friend and close advisor to Pres W H Taft...

Taft was looking forward to Butt's return to help in the re-election campaign. When Taft heard he was lost on the Titanic he was devastated and never got over losing his friend.

[Raine]

10. THANKS so much for posting this

it's interesting and very touching.

[ellisonz]

11. K & R

[Mimosa]

12. K&R Thanks for the wonderful stories.

Recursion, how interesting! The Washington D.C. memorial statue is a great example of public art.