Titanic Survivor. Born Selma Augusta Emilia Johansson in Smaland, Sweden, she emigrated to the United States where she met and married Carl O. Asplund, also a native of Sweden, in 1896. The couple settled in Worchester, Massachusetts where Filip Oscar was born in 1898, Clarence Gustaf Hugo in 1902, twins Lillian Gertrud and Carl Edgar in 1906. In 1907, the family returned to Sweden due to family issues. Another child, Edvin Rojj Felix, was born there in 1909. In 1912, the family traveled to Britain where they booked third class passage aboard the Titanic for their return to the United States. Selma claimed to have been awakened by the collision with the iceberg. She woke her husband who, after a survey of above decks, decided it would be best to wake the children and prepare for the worst, dressing them and finding life belts for them. On the boat deck the family waited together, before five year old Lillian and three year old Felix were taken and loaded into life boat 15. Selma said she would prefer to remain with her husband who in turn urged her aboard the life boat, saying the children should not be alone. Once in the life boat, she watched her husband and three remaining sons run towards the other side of the deck. She never saw them alive again. The survivors in life boat 15 were picked up by the RMS Carpathia about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband's body was eventually recovered, but not those of her sons. The diminished family returned to Worchester, Massachusetts on April 20, having lost everything in the disaster. Worcester rallied around the family raising a collection that was held in trust for them in order to provide them with an income. For the rest of her life, she refused to speak of the disaster, thinking it was wrong to do so. She succumbed to an intestinal obstruction in hospital, a few hours after being admitted at age 90, on the 52nd anniversary of the sinking.