Wendy Rush, the wife of Stockton Rush, the OceanGate chief executive, who is on board the missing Titan submersible, is descended from a New York couple who drowned on Titanic. Ms Rush's great-great-grandparents Isidor and Ida died when the ocean liner sank in 1912, according to New York Times report.
According to the archival records obtained by the media outlet, Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida were two of the wealthiest people aboard the Titanic for its first voyage. Ms Straus, born in 1845, was a co-owner of Macy's department store.
The Straus are remembered for their moving display of love when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. A disaster that claimed more than 1,500 lives.
Ida Straus refuse a seat on a lifeboat when women and children were still waiting to flee the sinking liner. Ida refused to go without her husband.
Ms Rush got married to Stockton Rush in 1986. According to her LinkedIn page, she has participated in three OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreckage in the last two years. She is the company's communications director and a longtime board member of the company's charitable foundation.
According to New York Times, Ms Rush is descended from of one of the Strauses' daughters, Minnie, who married Dr Richard Weil in 1905. Their son, Richard Weil Jr., later served as president of Macy's New York, and his son, Dr Richard Weil III, is Ms Rush's father, according to Joan Adler, the executive director of the Straus Historical Society.
