Born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrants, Jessop contracted tuberculosis at a young age and was expected to survive only a few months. She somehow recovered and went on to live a long, healthy life.

After her father died, Jessop’s mother moved the family to England and began working as a stewardess on a ship. When she became ill, Violet, who was attending a convent school, stepped in to become a ship stewardess herself.

In 1910 she began working aboard the Olympic. One year later, the Olympic collided with HMS Hawke, a ship designed to sink ships by ramming them. Although both ships sustained considerable damage, the ship did not sink and made it back to port. Violet disembarked without being harmed.

A couple of years later, the White Star Line was looking for crew to cater to the VIPs sailing on the Titanic. Violet took a job on board the “unsinkable” ship. She escaped the ship’s sinking in lifeboat 16.

“I was ordered up on deck. Calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling to their husbands before being put into the boats with their children. Sometime after, a ship’s officer ordered us into the boat first to show some women it was safe,” she wrote in her memoir.

In the lifeboat, Violet was handed a baby to care for. When they were rescued by the Carpathia, the baby’s mother trapped the baby out of Violet’s arms and ran off.

Having survived that disaster, Violet decided to serve as a nurse on board the Britannic, which was operating in the Aegean Sea just before World War I. The ship sustained damage and started sinking after it ran into a mine.

Unable to reach a lifeboat, Jessop jumped overboard.

“I leapt into the water but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head. I escaped, but years later when I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches, he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull!” she said.

A lifeline etched really deep and long on her palm!