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A Chat With Tom Sietsema


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I want to thank Tom for taking time out of his (very) busy schedule to join us. Tom, you've been wonderful, and I think everyone really appreciates you having been here.

For a final question, I'd like to touch on something few people know about you - your almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Titanic (the actual oceanliner). Other than professional historians working directly with the subject, not many people know more about this than you do. How did you become so fascinated with this subject, and just how much do you know about it?

And thank you again, Tom!

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Hi Tom:

Thanks for taking the time to answer a multitude of questions from the many posters on this site.  I recall, a few months ago, some were upset that you reviewed Pazo, an establishment in Baltimore.  From what I read, the reason behind their angst was that you are a writer for a DC area paper, and they felt that you should focus your attention on the establishments with in D.C. proper and the surrounding suburbs.  Personally, I have no problem with you reviewing places that are within an hours drive, as if the food is good I would be willing to take the trip.  What was your take on the reaction of those that disagreed with you? Also, how often in a calendar year do you review restaurants that are not in the D.C. area?

I was baffled by the readers who got angry when I went to Baltimore to review a place because 1) I've done it before, 2) Pazo was worth people knowing about, and 3) Baltimore is less of a drive away than some of the Virginia restaurants I've written about. Given the reaction from a few vocal diners, you would have thought I went to Dallas for the Sunday! lol

I will continue to review those places in the greater Washington area that I feel are important or otherwise worth knowing about. Seventy percent of the Post readership resides in the suburbs, after all. And, in my defense, I heard from plenty of people who were happy to know about a good restarant option in Baltimore.

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I want to thank Tom for taking time out of his (very) busy schedule to join us.  Tom, you've been wonderful, and I think everyone really appreciates you having been here. 

For a final question, I'd like to touch on something few people know about you - your almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Titanic (the actual oceanliner).  Other than professional historians working directly with the subject, not many people know more about this than you do.  How did you become so fascinated with this subject, and just how much do you know about it?

And thank you again, Tom!

I'd like to thank all of YOU for the good questions! This is a smart crowd. I've really enjoyed my week here.

As for my interest in the Titanic ....

I was fascinated by disasters as a kid (hmmm, a harbinger of things to come?) I read everything I could about the Hindenburg, the Morro Castle, the Andrea Doria and so on. But I really fell in love with the story of the Titanic. Here was this supposedly unsinkable ship -- crowded with VIPS and the first with such luxuries as a swimming pool -- and it sailed for less than a week. There was so much glamour and mystery surrounding the ocean liner and its sinking.

When I was about eleven, my grandmother sent me a clipping from a Minneapolis paper with the photograph of Mrs. John Pillsbury Snyder on it. She was looking down at a model of the Titanic, used in a British movie but sold for display in a shopping mall in the Twin Cities. "It looks awfully small down there," she was reported to have said.

A survivor (practically) in my own backyard!

I wrote Mrs. Snyder, arranged to visit her in her mansion (she was a Pillsbury heiress) in Wayzata, Minn., and had my Dad drive me the three hours up there to do so. I was armed with a list of 100 questions, a tape recorder and some vintage 1912 books relating to the Titanic, which I had her sign.

It was a heady two hours for this pint-sized Titanic buff. Mrs. Snyder could not have been more gracious -- I was intimidated by the maid who answered the door if not the grand dame herself -- and she pulled out all her old scrapbooks and interviews dating back to 1912.

She and her husband were returning from a three-month honeymoon in Europe and were originally slated to come back to the States on a French liner. But when that ship was put in dry dock for minor repairs, they were encouraged to return on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

Lots of irony: Mrs.Snyder had previously salied with the captain (Smith) and had had a bad experience. Leaving New York on another ship he was piloting, some ropes were connected to the dock and nearly ripped the thing asunder. So she had bad vibes about him from the get-go. And in Spain during her honeymoon, a fortune teller told her to "beware of the water' at all costs .... kinda creepy, huh?

Anyway, when the ship hit the iceberg, she and a bunch of other young newlyweds gathered on the deck to see what happened. Capt Smith came by and encouraged them to get into a lifeboat, just as a precaution and to set a good example for the other passengers. The women refused to go unless their husbands could accompany them -- and that's how Boat No. 7, the first lifeboat to leave the ship, departed with so many first-class males. Dorothy Gibson, a silent screen star of the era, was also in her boat. When the lifeboat hit the water, Mrs. Snyder recalled seeing a porthole slip beneath the water and realized the problem was serious.

Fearful of being sucked under the water should it actually sink, the occupants of Boat No. 7 rowed as far as they could from the ship. To their credit, they picked up survivors afterwards, however. The night was beautiful, with hundreds of brilliant stars in the sky and a glass-smooth sea, Mrs. Snyder told me. And she never forgot the alarms or the moan of the ship in its final death throes, when it raised out of the water, its lights blinking off, then on, then off, and the thing broke in half.

This is far more than any of you probably care to know, but obviously I still love the subject. My prized possession is a 1912 book on the sinking, signed "Mrs. J. P. Snyder, Survivor of the Titanic, Boat No. 7". Wonder how much THAT would go for on EBay?

Again, my thanks to you all for having me this week. It's been a real treat.

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