Titanic survivors once owned shooting victim’s home

The scene of an early morning shooting in the affluent neighbourhood of Mount Royal has a connection to the sinking of the Titanic.

Valued at $7.94 million, the home at 2211 7 St. S.W. belongs to Riaz Mamdani, who was shot around 8 a.m. on Monday. But the sprawling mansion was once owned by Titanic survivors Albert and Vera Dick.

“That house was, supposedly, one of the people who they rescued from the Titanic lived in that house,” neighbour Pat Moore said of the home.

Raised in Calgary, Albert Dick built the now demolished Hotel Alexandra on 8th Avenue S.E.

Albert was 31 when he married 17-year-old Vera the day the Titanic was put to sea on May 31, 1911.

The couple took their honeymoon in Europe, booking passage back to Canada on the ill-fated luxury liner, with plans to settle in their mansion in Calgary’s community of Mount Royal.

After the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, Vera refused to leave her husband’s side, despite being offered seats on three different lifeboats. The couple, locked in an embrace, were pushed into a lifeboat that carried them to safety.

What should have been Albert’s saving grace turned out to be a lifelong battle against gossip.

Moore said Albert was accused of wearing women’s clothes to get on the lifeboat, a rumour he battled for the rest of his life.

Shunned because he survived the wreck, business at his hotel suffered as a result, so Albert sold the building.

In 2012, the Dick’s grandson Bruce Van Norman told Postmedia that Albert was forced to defend his honour until the day he died in 1970.