Male passengers — even John Jacob Astor, one of the world’s wealthiest men — were being turned out of lifeboats no matter if they were less than half full.
Zenni tried another unsuccessful attempt to board. Moments later, the officer turned away, and Zenni leapt onto the lifeboat.
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
He happened to land in the most notorious lifeboat of all, in which Margaret “Molly” Brown famously fought with the lifeboat’s commander, Robert Hitchens, urging him to return to the ship and rescue drowning passengers. When Hitchens refused, Brown attempted to grab the tiller and urged the other women on board to join her.
One of only four men among the lifeboat’s 24 passengers, Zenni described rowing furiously for hours, guided only by a star, which they had mistaken for another boat. He was one of only 59 of the Titanic’s 440 third-class male passengers who survived.
Zenni was moving to Dayton to join his brothers and sisters who already had emigrated. During his Dayton years, he was nicknamed “Mr. Titanic” because of his frequent speeches in the area.
On June 13, 1912, just two months after the disaster, Zenni was interviewed by the Dayton Herald. Here is his first-hand account from the sinking of the Titanic:
First survivor
“I was in the bunk in the steerage when one of the fellows with whom I was traveling woke me and said the ship had hit something.”
Something wrong
“The engines were not working right. I could tell that because of the unusual noise from the engine room, and I knew that something was wrong. I had made trips across the water before and I was not scared like some of the passengers who had never been on the ocean much.
“I partly dressed and went up on the deck, when one of the steamship’s waiters said the vessel had struck an iceberg. The waiter, like the other passengers, had strapped on the life preservers, and when I saw these I knew it was something serious. I asked for a life preserver, having left mine down in my bunk.”
“‘How much will you give me for a life preserver?’ said the waiter to me, and I told him I had left all my money and my gold watch under my pillow, and that he was welcome to all of it if he would hand me a life preserver. I got the life preserver and never went back to the steerage.”
Boat is lowered
“Then the first boat was lowered even with the first deck, and I got in. An officer said to me, ‘Ladies and children first,’ and I got out of the row boat and back on deck.
“When the second boat was lowered even with the deck the officers were putting women and children in the boat. I sneaked behind the officer as he was helping a woman in the boat, jumped in the boat myself and crawled under a seat.
“Then when the boat was lowered a sailor called out, ‘Can any of you women help row?’ Then I got out from under the seat, as we were now down on the water, and said, ‘There is another man in this boat, I’ll help you row.’
“I did not know whether the sailor was going to order me to take an oar or throw me overboard, but he seemed glad to have another man to help and told me to row for my life. There were three sailors, myself and 20 women in that boat, the second which was lowered from the Titanic. Some of the women helped us row and we stayed at the oars for an hour or more.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
A mile away
“We were a mile away from the Titanic when it sank to the bottom, and the suction was felt by us at that distance. We rowed for a long time toward a light which we thought was another boat, but finally discovered it was only the Morning Star which we saw.
“Then we stopped rowing, and waited. We were in that boat for eight hours and a half and only saw one other boat during all that time.”
“As we had left the Titanic so soon after the ship had struck the iceberg we did not see the awful scenes which took place when the big ship finally sank to the bottom, but what we did experience as we were leaving the first deck was terrible.
“I hope I will never see such sights again, and it is too awful to describe.”
Saw a light
“Finally we saw a light, and thought it was the Olympic, but it proved to be the Carpathia, and we were finally picked up by that vessel, along with the other passengers who had escaped in row boats.
“While I was the only male passenger in my boat, besides the sailors, I do know the sailors and the women were glad another man was there to help with the oars during that trying time in the little boat.”
Zenni still had his card of passage on the Titanic, and also a second card from the Carpathia, showing that he was one of the survivors picked up by Captain Rostand and his crew and brought to New York.
Waits for bride
After reaching New York, Zenni waited there until his wife, whom he had married in Tula, Syria, arrived to the country in another boat.
The couple made their way to Dayton and bought a house at 101 Joe St.
Zenni died of pneumonia in 1927 at the age of 38. But he lived long enough to father three daughters and one son.
Nazera Woodie of Dayton, one of Zenni’s daughters, contacted Calvary Cemetery in 2002 to let them know about the remarkable history of the man buried in the simple tombstone that bears his name in both English and Cyrillic.
She remembered her father as a handsome man and a sharp dresser, sporting a diamond ring and diamond cufflinks, with a vivacious, bigger-than-life personality. He was a successful entrepreneur, opening a confectionery store and a pool hall and owning the city’s first ice cone maker.
Credit: Lisa Powell
Credit: Lisa Powell
Content from former Dayton Daily News staff reporter and columnist Mary McCarty was used in this story.
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