Johan Cervin Svensson
Johan Cervin Svensson was a Swedish 19 year old young man, blonde with blue eyes when he took voyage as a Third Class Passenger on the Titanic, traveling all on his own.
Early life[]
Johan Cervin Svensson was born on 5 March, 1898 in Knäred, Halland, Sweden.
Johan's father and elder sister Jenny had gone to South Dakota in 1911 while the rest of the family (sister Anna and brothers Johan Rudolf, Leonard, Reinhold, and Gösta) planned to follow. His father sent for Johan, so he took the train from Knäred to Gothenburg, Sweden, then a small boat to Hull, England.
Titanic[]
He boarded the Titanic in Southampton. His mother had given him extra cash in case he needed it. He shared a cabin with three other Swedes.
On April 14, when the collision happened, he was still asleep. He got woken by a knock on his door. He remembers lot of yelling and he couldn’t understand English so initially had no idea what was going on. The lifebelts that were put on by others gave him a clue that he should go and also find one as well. Johan was very self-reliant. He sneaked onto the First Class part of the Boat Deck and tried to get into a lifeboat, but was denied access twice. He was persistent enough, so he kept trying and a third time, he managed to get off the sinking vessel by eventually leaping into lifeboat 13. He had to jump from at least 10 feet.
Later life[]
When he arrived in South Dakota he changed his name to John C. Johnson and worked as a farmhand. The man known as 'Titanic' Johnson later moved to California where he worked as a ship welder for a marine construction company based in the Long Beach harbor, not far from the Queen Mary. He and his wife Hazel G. (Lindley) lived in a simple one story house on the corner of Termino Avenue and Stearns Street in Long Beach, not far from the infamous Long Beach Traffic Circle.
His daughter Joy Johnson tells us that the disaster had a large impact on her father Johan. He suffered very often from nightmares and always wondered: "Why was I saved when so many others were lost?"
He made only one visit to Sweden in 1961.
He died there on July 4, 1981. He and his wife are now buried side by side on a slight slope in the beautiful Rose Hills cemetery near Whittier, California, which is about 20 miles north of Long Beach. His gravemarker mentions that he was a Titanic survivor. He had become 83 years old.
Sources[]
- Johan Cervin Svensson (1898-1981) - Find a Grave
- http://swansonfamily.homestead.com/titanic.html
- John Cervin Johnson (1898 - 1981) - Genealogy (geni.com)
- Johan Cervin Svensson : Titanic Survivor (encyclopedia-titanica.org)
- Johan Cervin Svensson (1898-1981) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree : https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Svensson-6460