Arthur Olsen, handed to safety over the rail of the Titanic shortly before the ship sank 62 years ago, died Wednesday (Jan. 1, 1975) at age 71.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Olsen was on his way back to the United States from Trondheim, Norway, where he had lived from age 3 to 9, when the ship sank.
Mr. Olsen's father, one of the more than 1,500 persons who went down with the luxury liner, handed his 9-year-old son to a woman in a lifeboat just before the Titanic slipped bow-first into the water.
Placed by Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, one of the prominent survivors of the disaster, in a day-care nursery until his relatives could claim him, Mr. Olsen later served in the Merchant Marine and the U.S. Navy.
He worked for a number of companies and then as a house painter, moving to St. Petersburg in 1947. Prior to his death he was living at 701 Ninth Ave., N. C. E. Prevatt Funeral Home, Northeast Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
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