1. Jack Thayer later wrote and privately published his recollection of the sinking.
20 Facts About Jack Thayer
1. 2.
Jack Thayer was born into the Thayer family, a wealthy Boston Brahmin family.
3.
Jack Thayer was the son of John Borland Thayer II, a director and a second vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and his wife, Philadelphia socialite Marian Thayer.
4.
Seventeen-year-old Thayer had been traveling in Europe with his parents and a maid named Margaret Fleming.
5.
Jack Thayer woke his parents, who accompanied him back to the port side of the ship.
6.
Jack Thayer soon met Milton Long, a fellow passenger he had met just hours before.
7.
Jack Thayer proposed jumping off the ship, as he was a good swimmer, but as Long was not, he initially opposed jumping.
8.
Jack Thayer launched himself from the rail, his back facing the ship, and pushing outward.
9.
Once in the water, Jack Thayer was able to reach Collapsible B, one of the last lifeboats to be launched; it was overturned as a large wave had swept it off the deck before it could be lowered into the water.
10.
Jack Thayer later recalled that the cries of hundreds of people in the water reminded him of the high-pitched hum of locusts in his native Pennsylvania.
11.
Jack Thayer was so distraught and frozen that he did not notice his mother in nearby Lifeboat 4; nor did she notice him.
12.
Jack Thayer was one of about 40 persons who jumped or fell into the water and survived.
13.
Jack Thayer went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the fraternity Saint Anthony Hall.
14.
On December 15,1917, Thayer married Lois Buchanan Cassatt, daughter of Edward B Cassatt and Emily L Phillips.
15.
Jack Thayer's grandfather was Alexander Johnston Cassatt, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
16.
In 1939, Jack Thayer became treasurer of the University of Pennsylvania, and was appointed to the newly created office of financial vice president in February 1944, a position he held until his death in September 1945.
17.
Jack Thayer's death seemed to push him even further into a downward spiral.
18.
Jack Thayer was found in an automobile at 48th Street and Parkside Avenue in West Philadelphia, his throat and wrists cut.
19.
Jack Thayer was buried at the Church of the Redeemer Cemetery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
20.
Jack Thayer's account is sometimes included with fellow survivor Archibald Gracie IV's account of the sinking, in modern editions of Gracie's book Titanic: A Survivor's Story.