The 6th Annual “Celebrate Ourselves” spotlights LLC Member Joe Petteruti, Author of A Night She’d Remember: My Grandmother's Experience on the Titanic

Thursday, May 9, 2024
4-5 PM
Click here to register for this Zoom Webinar.

We at LLC are extraordinary! We are seniors, and here we are still growing – still learning. Some of us do extraordinary things. We sing, we dance, we do arts and crafts or knit, and some of us have stories to tell. And our fellow LLC member, Joe Petteruti, certainly has one.

This is the story of Joe Petteruti’s maternal grandmother, Bertha Mulvihill. An Irish immigrant, she arrived in Rhode Island in 1905. In late 1911, after living and working in Providence for six years, she returned to her hometown of Coosan, Ireland to visit her large family. At the last minute, Bertha purchased a third-class steerage ticket for the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic in April of 1912, from Queenstown, Ireland back to Providence. Viewing it as an exciting adventure, little did she know the tragic fate that awaited.

Joe will recount his grandmother’s experience as a third-class passenger on the "unsinkable" Titanic, sharing her perspective of that unforgettable night, A Night She’d Remember.

Joe Petteruti, a Providence native, has been a member of the Lifelong Learning Collaborative since 2010. He currently serves on three LLC committees and enjoys taking LLC courses. His favorite is the memoir writing class. Joe's book, A Night She’d Remember: My Grandmother's Experience on the Titanic tells the story about his maternal grandmother who survived the sinking of the Titanic. His book started in a 2015 memoir writing class as a short highlight. During the pandemic, Joe continued writing and he says it is thanks to his coordinator encouraging him that led to its being published in 2022.