Luise Gretchen Kink
Luise Gretchen Kink-Heillmann was a Third Class Passenger onboard Titanic, she was only 4 at the time.
Luise was born 8 April 1908 at Zürich, four weeks before her parents, Anton Kink and Luise Heilmann were married. She boarded Titanic in Southampton with her parents and aunt and uncle, Maria Kink and Vincenz Kink. She was in a Third Class cabin at the stern with her mother, aunt and two other women, Aloisia Haas and Josefina Arnold.
Onn the night of the disaster she was rescued on lifeboat 2 along with her parents. Because men weren't allowed into the boats on port side, her father Anton had to step back but he leapt in when it was lowered.
Her family leased a farm in Milwaukee and after her father divorced and left she quit school to earn money and support her mother.
She married Harold Pope in 1932 and they had four children, They were later divorced and she developed a relationship with a "friend" Al Kenyon. Luise Kink-Pope worked tirelessly, well into her eighties. She fought against tuberculosis, arthritis and breast cancer.
In her later years, Kink became more involved in Titanic-related activities. Shortly after the wreck was discovered in 1985 at the bottom of the Atlantic, she testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, urging protection of the site as a memorial.
In 1987, Kink joined several survivors at a convention in Wilmington, Delaware, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the sinking. In 1988, she was present at another convention organized by the Titanic Historical Society held in Boston, Massachusetts, and was guest of honor in 1989 at the inaugural convention of the Titanic International Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1990, Kink was guest of honor on Ellis Island as a plaque remembering those lost immigrating to the U.S. was formally dedicated. In September 1991, she joined Halifax Mayor Ronald Wallace at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, for ceremonies commemorating the Titanic International Society's identification of six previously unknown Titanic victims buried there.
Despite suffering from tuberculosis, arthritis and breast cancer, Kink returned to Boston yet again in 1992 to participate in the Titanic Historical Society's convention marking the 80th anniversary of the maritime disaster. In April 1992, she was guest of honor in New Jersey at a Titanic-related play.
She cared for her mother until she passed away in the late seventies and eventually succumbed to lung cancer in 1992. She was survived by Al Kenyon, four children, seventeed grand children and fourteen great grand children. She was buried alongside her mother.