Isidor Straus (February 6, 1845 – April 15, 1912) was a Bavarian-born American businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United States House of Representatives.[2] He died with his wife, Ida, in the sinking of the Titanic.
Straus was born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in the former Palatinate, then ruled by the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was the first of five children of Lazarus Straus (1809–1898) and his second wife and first cousin, Sara Straus (1823–1876).[3] His siblings were Hermine (1846–1922), Nathan (1848–1931), Jakob Otto (1849–1851) and Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926). In 1854 he and his family immigrated to the United States, following his father, Lazarus, who immigrated two years before. They settled first in Columbus, Georgia, and then lived in Talbotton, Georgia, where their house still exists today. He was preparing to go to the United States Military Academy at West Point when the outbreak of the American Civil War prevented him from doing so.[4] In 1861, he was elected an officer in a Confederate military unit but was not allowed to serve because of his youth; in 1863, he went to England to secure ships for blockade running.[5] Straus worked as an aide to a London-based Confederate agent while living in England, as well as a Confederate bond salesman in both London and Amsterdam.[6]
After the Civil War, they moved to New York City, where Lazarus convinced Rowland Hussey Macy, founder of Macy's, to allow L. Straus & Sons to open a crockery department in the basement of his store.
Isidor Straus worked at L. Straus & Sons, which became the glass and china department at Macy's. In 1888, he and Nathan Straus became partners of Macy's. In 1893 he and his brother bought a controlling interest in Wechsler & Straus, renamed Abraham & Straus. By 1896, Isidor and his brother Nathan had gained full ownership of R. H. Macy & Co.[7]
Minnie Straus (1880–1940), who married Dr. Richard Weil (1876–1917)
Herbert Nathan Straus (1881–1933), who married Therese Kuhn in 1907 (1884–1977)
Vivian Straus (1886–1967) first married Herbert Adolph Scheftel (1875–1914) with whom she had two of her three children and second, in 1917, married George A. Dixon Jr. (1891–1956).[10]
Traveling back from a winter in Europe, mostly spent at Cape Martin in southern France, Isidor and his wife were passengers on the Titanic when, at about 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, it hit an iceberg. Once it was clear the Titanic was sinking, Ida refused to leave Isidor and would not get into a lifeboat without him.[16] According to friend and Titanic survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, when he offered to ask an officer if Isidor could enter a lifeboat with Ida, Isidor refused to be made an exception while women and children were still on board, while Ida is reported to have said, "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so we will die, together."[17] Ida gave her maid her fur coat and insisted she gets into a lifeboat. Isidor and Ida were last seen on deck arm in arm; eyewitnesses described the scene as a "most remarkable exhibition of love and devotion".[18] The ship sank at 2:20 am.
Isidor's body was recovered by CSMackay-Bennett and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from there shipped to New York. He was first buried in the Straus-Kohns Mausoleum at Beth-El Cemetery in Brooklyn, and he was then moved to the Straus Mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in 1928. Ida's body was never found, so the family collected water from the wreck site and placed it in an urn in the mausoleum. Isidor and Ida are memorialized on a cenotaph outside the mausoleum with a quote from the Song of Solomon (8:7): "Many waters cannot quench love—neither can the floods drown it."[19]
In addition to the cenotaph at Woodlawn Cemetery, there are three other memorials to Isidor and Ida Straus in their adopted home of New York City:
A memorial plaque can be seen on the main floor of Macy's Department Store in Manhattan.
The Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial is located in Straus Park, at the intersection of Broadway and West End Avenueat106th Street (Duke Ellington Boulevard) in Manhattan.[20] The park is one block from where they resided at 105th Street and West End Avenue (now the site of the Cleburne Building). An inscription reads, "Lovely and pleasant they were in their lives, and in death they were not divided." (2 Samuel 1:23)
New York City Public School P.S. 198, built in Manhattan in 1959, is named in memory of Isidor and Ida Straus. The building, at Third Avenue between East 95th and 96th Streets, shares space with another school, P.S. 77.[21]
Straus Hall, one of Harvard's freshman residence halls in Harvard Yard, was given in honor of the Strauses by their three sons.[22]
The couple are portrayed in the 1953 film Titanic, the 1958 film A Night to Remember, and in the musical Titanic, in scenes that are faithful to the accounts described above. In the 1979 film S.O.S. Titanic, Ida and Isidor are shown, however the film deviates from the accounts and has Ida tell Isidor that she plans to "stay a little while." In the 1997 film Titanic, the Strauses are briefly depicted (despite there being no evidence they returned to their cabin and despite the fact that Isidor's body was later recovered) kissing and holding each other on their bed as their stateroom floods with water, during a sequence of emotional events while the ship's string quartet plays the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee". A deleted scene, in harmony with the accounts of rescued survivors, shows Isidor (played by Lew Palter) attempting to persuade Ida (played by Elsa Raven) to enter a lifeboat, which she refuses to do.
^"Reminiscences of Jacob Greenebaum, Sr. - Written for his Children in 1859 Volume 2 Number 1"(PDF). Straus Historical Society. August 2000. : Johanette GREENEBAUM married Isaak STRAUS in about 1808. They were the parents of 14 children. Their oldest, Lazarus STRAUS, married his first cousin, Sara STRAUS. Lazarus and Sara were the parents of Isidor, Hermine, Nathan and Oscar
