Last Titanic survivor Dean dies at 97

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SOUTHAMPTION, England, June 1 (UPI) -- Millvina Dean, the last surviving passenger from the wreck of the Titanic, has died in Southampton, England, at age 97, officials said.

Dean, who was an infant when she was put into a canvas mail sack and lowered from the sinking liner into a lifeboat on April 14, 1912, had been in poor health at the nursing home in recent days and died Sunday, the home's staff told The New York Times.

Dean was only 9 weeks old when the Titanic struck an iceberg off Newfoundland and sank. She, her mother Georgetta and her 2-year-old brother Bertram Vere Dean survived the ordeal in a lifeboat and were later picked up by the liner Carpathia. Her father, Bertram Dean, was one of the more than 1,500 passengers and crew members who died in the Titanic disaster, the newspaper said.

Dean, in an interview at the nursing home last month, said her mother believed that her father died because he had been locked into the steerage, or third class, section of the ship under orders from the ship's crew, who had been told to reserve limited lifeboat space for first- and second-class passengers, the Times said.