Sacramento Women Discovers Family Letter About Titanic Experience

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - It's a piece in Joan Randall's life that has taken her down so many different paths.

"I knew that my family was on the Titanic, but I didn't know what that meant," said Randall.

As a little girl most of what she learned about the Titanic came from a song at Girl Scout camp.

"I was pretty old before I really thought about it," said Randall.

But by the time she was an adult questions about her family's moments on the Titanic became a great interest.

"My mother, and my grandmother, and my grandfather were survivors of the Titanic," said Randall. "My great aunt and uncle were also on the Titanic but they sunk with the ship."

And those who lived didn't share a whole lot. Her own mother was very young when it happened.

"My mother was four in 1912. She was born in 1908," said Randall.

It's been up to Randall to piece this all together. Her mother suffered from traumatic amnesia,

"She had no memory of her life, whatsoever, until she was in school," said Randall.

But Randall does vividly remember seeing a movie about the tragedy when she was younger.

"My mother took my grandmother and I to a movie called "The Titanic" with Barbara Stanek in 1950-something, and my grandmother walked out swearing because she said it wasn't the way it was," said Randall.

It's taken years and still, it's not totally clear exactly how it was, but recently, a letter written by her grandfather in May of 1912 turned up, with incredible details.

"Where he was on the boat, how he jumped in, where they were rowing around the ship, lifeboat number two was the first one to reach the Carpathia, a whole story," said Randall.

The way Randall sees it, this whole story may not be any more special than yours or mine. However, the research that's been done and the discoveries that have been made, have attracted an enormous following.

"So many people come from interesting backgrounds but the Titanic is so huge there's [sic] movies. It's traumatic, so people are interested in my story because I'm attached to it; but your story, and your story, and your story, might be just as interesting. It just doesn't have the flash," said Randall.