(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music continues) - Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Hannibal at the Molly Brown Birthplace Museum.

Don't let the closed sign fool you.

As I stand here today, it's the first day of the opening of the Molly Brown Birthplace and Museum.

And during this program, we'll give you a brief tour, and we also get an opportunity to talk to the great granddaughter of The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Well, you don't always get a chance to meet Molly Brown in the Molly Brown Birthplace Museum, but Lisa Marks you do a pretty good Molly Brown- - Why, thank you.

- And you happen to be here today.

- I am here today.

- You and your husband operate this small museum.

- Yes.

- And it commemorates the life of the person we know as Molly Brown, Margaret Tobin, who was born in this house, this little bitty cottage.

And she became a worldwide known figure, didn't she?

- Yes, she did.

And I think the real story here is how someone could start, with such modest means as a small cottage with eight people living in two rooms, and then make their way, not only to be on Titanic, she was at the coronation of King George the Fifth in Westminster Abbey.

She was traveling with the Astor's, she was best friends with the Vanderbilt's, and to make that journey from point A to point B is an amazing story.

- And she not only hung out with the rich and famous, but she also did a lot of good work.

- Oh yes, she did.

- It was more than just being a rich person.

- Wealthy, yes.

She fought for child labor laws, she was a huge influence in the women's suffrage movement, getting the women to the right to vote.

She fought for miner's rights, workers' rights.

She even tried to champion eight hour workdays and weekends, which were unheard of in the early 1900s.

And she threw herself into these causes and was really a champion for the things that she found important.

- And you know this because you've done a lot of research because you do this one woman show, this Molly Brown, not an impersonation, a- - A historical reenactment.

- Interpreter.

- Yeah, okay.

Re enactor, there you go.

- You know what we have found is, especially with school children, that if you portray her and tell the story as if you're telling them your life story, it is so much more palpitable.

It's so much more easy to digest than if you're lecturing or showing slides on a screen.

It just is so much more well-received when you portray her and say, and then I did this.

It's really a lot of fun.

- Yeah.

Now we walk in.

When you walk into the museum front door, you walk into the barn.

- Yes.

- When the Tobin's lived here, they kept their animals below their living space.

That is correct.

- And that's where we are now.

And it kind of looks like a barn.

- It does, yes.

This was where the cow and the chickens were kept in the winter time.

Next door to the summer kitchen.

And one interesting thing about this room, back when Margaret was born in 1867, Hannibal was a huge lumber town.

And when they would get the white pine logs from Wisconsin and Minnesota, they would tie them into long rafts, and float everything here to Hannibal to be milled.

When they did that, when they tied the rafts up, they would drill big holes into the wood to tie the rafts.

If you look at the rafters, you'll see holes.

- Sure enough.

- Well, the thing was- - [Mark] These floated down the river, huh?

- They did and these were considered the inferior lumber pieces because of the holes, they said they would weaken them, so the poor in Hannibal ended up using this lumber to build their houses.

And that's why you see the ones with all of the holes in here.

But these are full two inch by six inch.

They don't make them like this anymore.

- It's held up pretty well despite the holes.

- Yes.

- Okay, let's walk in here.

You mentioned summer kitchen and this would have been... Mrs. Tobin would have spent an awful lot of time in here, wouldn't she?

- Oh, her whole life would have been in this one room.

She would have made all of the meals for the family, kept the house warm, keeping the stove on.

Brought all the water in, there was no plumbing in those days.

There's a pump right outside the door that she would have used.

Everything was done in this kitchen.

Rearing the children, baking the bread, churning the butter, everything was done in here.

- Now you and your husband, Ken, have gone to a lot of trouble to get period pieces.

Of course, this isn't the same stove and it's not the same table, but these are like-pieces that would have been in the home then.

- I would love to take credit for that but I'm gonna give that to Terrell and Vicky Dempsey because they restored the house in the 1990s, they brought in a lot of these artifacts and one in particular that's wonderful here, this stove is an original Duffy-Trowbridge stove that was manufactured right here in Hannibal.

- No kidding.

- And this dates from around the 1880s, 1890s, so certainly would have been appropriate to the period.

- And it was made in Hannibal.

- And it says right here, Hannibal, Missouri, so that's a wonderful artifact for our town.

- It really is.

It really is.

And I don't suppose they're still making stoves in Hannibal?

- [Lisa] Not any longer.

Nobody buys these big old stoves anymore, believe it or not.

- I'd like to have one just to look at it.

I wouldn't want to have to start a fire in it every day, but I would like to have one.

- And you know, Johanna, this stove in particular, she would have spent maybe four hours a day just working with this stove, keeping it warm, keeping the fire going, removing the ashes.

And once a week, she would have had to use blackening, which is kind of a wax, to keep rust from building up.

So she would have covered the whole stove in blackening wax just so that she could feed her family.

- And one of the insights had on this is the families were so large, not only was the woman doing this all the time, year round, but she was often pregnant.

- Yes.

- And everybody who's been pregnant knows how difficult it is to keep up your normal daily activities.

- They were Catholic, so certainly a big family was expected and she had six children.

And it was nice to have those children to help with the chores.

But prior to their being strong enough, old enough to help, she would have had to be pregnant, with toddlers, stoking the fires and turning the butter.

And so to think of what she did is just...

The fortitude that that family had and the women had in those days, it's just amazing.

- It is remarkable.

During this program, we also get a chance to talk to the great granddaughter of Molly Brown.

- Yes, Helen Benziger.

- Who doesn't come to Hannibal very often, but we got lucky to catch her today.

And Father Quinn brought some precious old books that chart the baptism records of the Tobin family, so we get a chance to see that too.

But first let's go upstairs, okay?

Because the family would have likely eaten here, milked the cows over there, and then gone upstairs to go to sleep.

So let's head up there, okay?

- All right.

- Okay, Lisa, I almost called you Molly.

Lisa.

- That's quite all right.

- After you come up the steps, the first room you would have come to, these tiny little room, is the room that she was born in.

Molly Brown was born in this room, as were all of her siblings, I assume.

- [Lisa] Yes and her son Lawrence was born here.

She had her first child at the age of 19 and I think she needed to be home with her mama for that first birth.

So she actually made her way from Colorado back to Hannibal and her son Lawrence were born here as well.

- [Mark] I didn't know that.

And they would have had rope beds.

- Yes.

- They weren't wealthy.

- [Lisa] And that's where the term sleep tight comes from.

- [Mark] And why is that?

- [Lisa] Because you had to tighten your ropes to make sure that you didn't sink as you slept, so you wanted to sleep tight.

- [Mark] Okay, so every so often you'd tighten those up and, okay, sleep tight.

I like that.

Okay.

(Lisa laughs) And then the rest of the family, I guess, would have slept in here.

And you have eight people sleeping... No, this is, well, it's for a dining room as well, huh?

- This was the all-purpose room.

They would have done their homework here.

They would have eaten here, slept here.

The one thing I love about this room, I have such a good feeling here.

If you look out the window at that grassy area that's where the grammar school for the whole Irish-Catholic community was.

Mrs. O'Leary was her Aunt Mary and she taught the school.

And because that school would have been so close, you could just imagine that just day and night there would have been children running through this house, music and merriment- - [Mark] That probably would have been a one room, wooden school house, wasn't it?

- Tiny, tiny house.

And so just to know that the children in the neighborhood would have congregated here, I think makes this a very special space.

- Okay, so they did have a room where they could keep order with eight people.

This was their den.

- (Lisa laughs) That's right.

- [Mark] And then this part of the house, this gallery, was added on later, I assume?

- [Lisa] Yes, we believe this room was added on sometime the 1930s.

And it serves as a wonderful space to be able to tell more of the story of Titanic, certainly, and of her life after living in this home.

- Well, if you'll move toward me, we can see what this mural here, this enormous picture of the Titanic, and it's really a nice piece of work.

- [Lisa] Isn't it wonderful?

- [Mark] Yeah.

That is really nice.

So, Molly Brown, or Margaret Tobin, is aboard the Titanic with some, what, eight or 900 other people.

- [Lisa] Well, there were actually over 2000 people aboard Titanic.

- [Mark] 2000?

Okay.

And hits the iceberg, as everybody knows, and so many people died.

Some were lucky enough to get into a lifeboat like Molly was.

And, of course, her nickname The Unsinkable Molly Brown not only pertained to her experience on the Titanic, but also her attitude toward life.

She could not be told no and get away with it.

- That is correct.

Once Titanic sank and she was on lifeboat number six, she worked to make sure the people on board her lifeboat kept calm and quiet.

And when they were saved by Carpathia, she formed the first Titanic Survivors Committee on Carpathia, and started raising money to help the immigrant women and children who had lost their husbands, and their fathers, and their sons.

Before they even reached the shore of New York City, she had raised $10,000 to hand out to these people, which in today's money is $233,000.

She went to all the first class passengers and said, do you have any jewelry, do you have any certificates that you kept?

No, well just sign this piece of paper and you can make good on it when we get back to New York.

And so she raised these funds.

The rest of her life she was the chairman of the Titanic Survivors Committee and helped these people for years after.

But I think the most important thing to remember about Molly is, I think she survived and felt a tremendous sense of guilt.

1500 people died aboard Titanic, 700 were saved.

And to be one of the 1/3 that was given the gift of extra life meant that you had a great burden to make that worthwhile.

And I think she took that very seriously.

Maybe it was subconscious, but I think for the rest of her life she gave back in every way she possibly could to repay the gift of extra life.

And so she championed child labor laws.

She was a huge mover in the women's suffrage movement and helped get the first vote.

As a matter of fact, a lot of people don't know this, but the very first vote cast by a woman in the United States, once the 19th amendment was ratified, was right here in Hannibal, Missouri.

Marie Byrum cast her vote for her first ward congressmen, or councilman rather, and I think, honestly, that Molly must've thought that was just so exciting.

That she had fought for 20 years for the women to get the vote and the first vote was cast in her hometown.

She fought for miner's rights, workers' rights, championed so many causes, and really almost to the sacrifice of her family.

It pulled her away from her children and her husband, and she was very independent during that time.

But I really believed that it was just out of a sense of feeling as though she had to give back.

- She was known in Europe, as well, because she wouldn't go- - Oh, very well known.

- She would go, I guess, right after world War I, when there was so much poison and illness from the gas.

- [Lisa] She actually was in France for the entire war.

She had gone with Anne Morgan, who's JP Morgan's daughter, and they had formed a committee to help devastated France.

And they worked to replant crops, build schools, libraries, just help those that were in need in France.

And for her efforts, she actually received the Legion of Honor metal from the French government for what she did during World War I.

Then after the war she came back to the United States and she had donated her cottage in Newport, Rhode Island, and paid for herself to have it outfitted as a hospital, a rehabilitation center, and soldiers that had been blinded with mustard gases were brought there.

And she was so proud to be from Hannibal that she had taken it upon herself to publish a whole series of Mark Twain's classic books in braille and handed them out to these soldiers so that they could learn to read when they came back.

The things that she did were just amazing and Titanic truly was just a very small part of her story.

- When you have school kids come, for instance, even adults, do you have a favorite quote or is there a favorite story that you tell them as Molly Brown?

Do you have a favorite?

- I think the most important thing that I try and tell people is Molly lived here until she was 18-years-old, here in Hannibal, in this house.

And Hannibal had a profound influence on her life for the rest of her life.

We've all gone to our high school reunions.

You realize that the people you graduated with have not really changed.

So your personality, who you are, is pretty much locked down by the time you're 18.

And so she left Hannibal being this plucky, strong-willed person and her experiences as a child in Hannibal prepared her for this amazing life that she was to lead.

And I think it's important to know how significant Hannibal... We have to convince people she's from Hannibal.

People believe she's from Colorado.

What do you mean she's from Hannibal?

And so I think the most important thing for me is for people to know she was from here and was very proud to be from here.

Came back all of her life.

Visited, probably, at least once a year.

She was here in 1926 for the dedication of the Tom and Huck statue.

And so she had a very important place in this hometown.

And we are so delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate that she was from Hannibal, Missouri.

- Well, thank you.

- My pleasure.

- Helen, when you walk into this house, into this little cottage, what do you think?

- That I come from some fine stock.

Anybody who can live with a cow in their basement... - We are in the basement area- - We are in the basement - On that side of the wall, that's where the cows, and chickens, and whatever else would have been.

And in here would have been where they brought the milk, and the cheese, and the butter.

Whatever they got from the cow.

And they would have prepared it in here in the kitchen.

- Right, and they would have brought the vegetables in and all of that.

- Yeah and something like eight people living in this little cottage.

Two rooms upstairs, two rooms down.

- Six children and two adults.

And I apologize for my voice, but it's gone.

I've been talking a lot.

- It's okay, we have a good microphone, so don't worry about that.

- Then excuse my squeaks.

- We can get by.

But, really, when you think about it, eight people living in this little cottage, one of them your great grandmother, Molly Brown, her name was, at the time, Margaret Tobin.

Became Molly Brown and became an American legend.

- I prefer to think of her as a heroine, rather than a legend.

She was a woman ahead of her time.

She was a woman who pressed the edge of the envelope constantly in her world.

Women didn't speak up.

Women were quiet.

Women were demure.

Margaret was not.

She loved challenges.

She loved anything that came her way that she could in any way save, or promote, or enlarge.

- Now, unfortunately, you never got to meet her.

She passed away before you were born.

But you have done a lot of research about her because you feel kind of close to her, don't you?

- I do.

I do.

I've been accused many times of being just like her.

My mother did that one time.

I was about 10 and I was being very bad.

And my mother came in and said, well, you're just a throwback to that blank, blank, Margaret Brown.

And I looked at her and I said, thank you.

(Mark laughs) - For those who aren't real familiar with your great grandmother.

She's known for surviving the wreck of the Titanic.

- Correct.

- She's also known for running for the U.S. Senate before women were allowed to vote.

- [Helen] Eight years prior to the vote being passed (mumbles).

- [Mark] She was known for traveling to Europe during rather unsettled times and helping the poor.

- Just after Titanic she took a fleet of ships across almost the same route the Titanic took.

Bringing private ambulances to France to help in the war effort there.

She also brought over books in braille because the weapon of choice at that time was mustard gas which rendered the soldiers blind.

So, at that point, she provided the books and provided the instructors.

And her hope was that these men would learn braille and maybe have a chance at a living because they could read rather than sitting on a corner with a tin cup.

- Can you imagine the bravery it would have taken?

I'm thinking for myself, if I survived the Titanic and what it took to make it aboard one of those lifeboats and then get back to the U.S., I'd never get on a ship again.

(Mark laughs) - Well, to me, I'm about to get on my second one in October and I have a little trepidation.

The first one was from South Hampton back to New York on the QM2.

A dear friend of mine is putting on a Titanic tribute cruise and we're going to be going up to Nova Scotia, or Halifax, and the bodies of the people who died on Titanic were taken and buried.

And the graveyard in Halifax is in the shape of the Titanic.

And it's just beautiful.

So we're going to go there and then make stops on the way down that have to do with people on the Titanic.

- I asked you earlier and you said, Molly Brown really doesn't resonate as much as the name used to, but it's brought you some interesting times.

I mean, when she, I say she was a legend.

A musical was written about her life, and her rise to wealth, and what she did.

But you've met some interesting people because of it.

- Oh yes, Bob Ballard, who was extremely interesting.

I've met everybody, not everybody in the world, but my life, it has brought me into a sphere of people that I normally wouldn't have been with.

- [Mark] Like Debbie Reynolds.

- Debbie Reynolds, yeah.

Harve Presnell.

Oh, what a voice.

(throat clearing) Excuse me.

And I also get a lot of people who really don't understand and they'll go, oh, you're related to Debbie Reynolds?

Yeah, blonde, perky.

You but, that's me.

Let me just do a dance number for you.

But it has given me many opportunities to travel and meet people I never would've met.

And it's a joy to do this.

And it's wonderful that first Vicki and Terrell, and now Lisa and Ken, have taken over this house and they've done beautifully.

And it's amazing that this wasn't bulldozed.

And that's how her home in Denver was saved, 'cause they were gonna tear it down.

And a group of people formed Historic Denver and therefore it was saved, it was restored slowly, and it's just a marvel.

- That's a thriving museum now.

It's a little bigger than this one.

- Just a tad.

- But it's quite impressive.

- Yeah.

Her home is beautiful.

- Well, thank you, Helen, for visiting with us.

- Oh, you're so welcome.

- And you're always welcome back to Hannibal.

You know that.

- I love Hannibal.

Hannibal's a sweet, sweet town and the community is amazing.

And the fact that they've come together now to save this little home is just heartwarming for me.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Father Mike Quinn, back in the 1860s when the Tobin's had this rather large family in this little bitty house, this whole part of Hannibal, it's all Irish people.

- It's all Irish and very Catholic, predominantly Catholic.

And they even had their school right next door to here that Molly Brown's aunt taught in.

And they were probably 95% Catholic.

They didn't have to be Catholic.

They had to be Irish to go.

- And the little church here that served them, Immaculate Conception.

is still there.

- It's still there.

(both speaking) - And then, of course, the church built a bigger- - That's right.

They got it from the congregational community who decided not to continue using that church, so we bought it from them in 1880.

And that's where, like Molly's mother and father, their funerals would have been celebrated in that church.

- And you got curious, and we're lucky that you brought with you, you got curious to look into the records.

The birth and baptism records.

- [Both] Of the Tobin Family.

- Right.

And that's been wonderful.

- And you actually found the original books?

- Yes, found the original books that are pretty delicate because they're 150-years-old almost.

- And you didn't wanna bring those out, of course, because too risky.

- Yeah.

- But back in the 60s, they did make copies, didn't they?

- After 100 years of record keeping from the 1850s to 1960, they transposed all of them into another book.

And for instance, like in this book, on the very top of the ledger, on page 25 you have Daniel Tobin who would be Molly Brown's older brother.

And, as you can see, he was born on November the 3rd of 1862 and baptized December the 4th of 1862.

So that would have been normal.

About a month later.

- [Mark] Name of the parents, John Tobin.

- [Mike] And his mother's name was Johanna Collins, would have been her maiden name.

So they always put a maiden name.

And of course here are the godparents, the Driscoll's and Gables'.

Yeah.

- What a wonderful thing.

Now, here's the interesting thing.

Molly's not in here.

- In 1863, when she was born and would have been baptized, there are all kinds of entries in the baptismal records, but that's happened a lot, I think, in the 1800s.

But every once in a while they'd miss a kid.

They would have maybe a number of baptisms because, in 1863, they were probably 40 or 50 baptisms entered in here.

That was Molly's year, but hers, for some reason, of all people...

Her sister Helen's in here, Bridget's in here.

Different ones, but then not everybody, not everybody.

- Record keeping wasn't then what it is now.

- [Mike] That's exactly right.

- And one priest had to do so much and didn't have an automobile.

So he probably had to get on a horse and ride somewhere, and he says, oh, I'll make a note of that later.

I gotta go do this now and I'll put that in the ledger later.

- You're exactly right.

- And it doesn't get done.

But isn't it interesting, it's Margaret, Molly Brown who doesn't get entered.

- That's exactly right.

- And who becomes a historical figure.

- Catholics tended to be poor in those days.

Most of them were Irish.

The women would have been, what, servants of the wealthier people.

The barons, who, in town, would have been whatever they were.

I don't know what their faith background was, but they certainly weren't Catholic.

They tended to be poor and Irish.

- Well, Father, thanks for bringing this in.

This is an interesting slice of history.

It's very nice.

- It's wonderful to have Molly Brown celebrated, the woman that was a part of our faith community, and went on and continued to do great things.

Especially caring about people who were struggling.

- And the poor.

- Women and the poor, yeah.

- This newest addition to Hannibal's tourism sites, The Molly Brown Birthplace Museum, is open every day from 10 to four.

There is an admission.

With another Illinois Story in Hannibal, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois stories is brought to you by The Corporation For Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.

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