Walter Lord

Two New York authors, Jenny Lawrence and John Maxtone-Graham, shook off the rain and chill of a dreary fall Thursday in Baltimore and quietly stood in the well of the Gilman School auditorium waiting for 255 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students to take their seats. They were there to tell the students about one of their own: Walter Lord, the noted historian and writer who graduated from Gilman in 1935. Christopher Lee, founding partner, director and CEO of AIG Highstar, and his wife, Susan Ginkel, who is a member of the Gilman board, have two sons at the school and endowed a scholarship in Walter Lord's name.

With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, there should be a renewed interest in "A Night to Remember," Baltimorean Walter Lord's recreation of the ship's sinking. It is a classic in the dramatiuc retelling of an historical event, and you could draw a straight line to more recent books such as Sebastian Junger's "A Perfect Storm" or Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air. " From the first pages, Lord evokes the gentility of the steamship era, and pulls readers into the unfolding disaster.

The phone rang the other day, and it was Jenny Lawrence calling from her home in New York City. "Walter would have been 92 this week," she said. The Walter she was referring to was Walter Lord, more formally John Walter Lord Jr., the author born and raised in Baltimore who sparked the Titanic craze with the publication in 1955 of his book, "A Night to Remember." Lawrence, an author and editor, recently published "The Way It Was: Walter Lord on His Life and Books," a memoir she assembled from unpublished autobiographical material he had left behind after his death in 2002, and tape-recorded sessions she had made and transcribed in the mid-1980s.

A century ago this April 15, Baltimoreans, like the rest of the world, awakened to the news that the great White Star Liner RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage to New York, had been in a collision late the night before, hitting an iceberg about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland in frigid Atlantic waters. In a Sunday, April 14, dispatch from Cape Race, Newfoundland, The Baltimore Sun reported that at 10:25 p.m. (Baltimore time) the Titanic had struck an iceberg and had called for "immediate assistance.

NEW YORK -- It was a rainy afternoon in 1927 when 10-year-old John Walter Lord Jr. made the discovery that would forever change his life.In the library at the Towson farm of his aunt, Dorothea Deford, the Baltimore boy pulled down from a shelf a slim black volume titled "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic."The book was written by Lawrence Beesely, a young science teacher at Dulwich College in England who had been a second-class passenger on the doomed ocean liner that had sunk so tragically and unexpectedly on April 15, 1912 -- 86 years ago today.

In his preface to the 1976 edition of A Night to Remember, Walter Lord wrote: "In a way the Titanic has proved even more unsinkable than the White Star Line claimed. Sixty-four years have now passed since the `Convergence of the Twain,' as Thomas Hardy called it, yet interest remains unabated in the great ship that went down in the night." In 1998, amid the latest Titanic frenzy caused by the release of James Cameron's film and a Broadway musical of the same name, Lord leaned across the desk in his apartment on New York's Upper East Side and cheerfully told a visitor, "I've succumbed to it."

Services John Walter Lord Jr.: A memorial service for John Walter Lord Jr., the Baltimore-born historian and author of A Night to Remember who died May 19, will be held at noon June 10 at the New York Historical Society, 2 W. 77th St. and Central Park West, in New York City. Gilman School has planned a "Celebration of the Life of Gilman and Baltimore Son, Walter Lord," at 2 p.m. June 16 in its alumni auditorium, on the campus at 5407 Roland Ave. Information: New York Historical Society at 212-873-3400; Gilman School at 410-323-7176.

Walter Lord says that Francis Scott Key could not have seen the Star-Spangled Banner by the dawn's early light from eight miles down the Patapsco. Mock the word of this Lord!Don finally found the villain whom the Shepard voters were against: General Services Secretary Seboda!The British have nerve getting a prime minister that Americans never heard of. Why couldn't they pick young Winston Churchill, for our sake?What if the whole world went to war against Iraq, and lost?

With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, there should be a renewed interest in "A Night to Remember," Baltimorean Walter Lord's recreation of the ship's sinking. It is a classic in the dramatiuc retelling of an historical event, and you could draw a straight line to more recent books such as Sebastian Junger's "A Perfect Storm" or Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air. " From the first pages, Lord evokes the gentility of the steamship era, and pulls readers into the unfolding disaster.

They recalled him as a prankster, a lifelong learner and a perpetual kid at heart. They reminisced about his infectious sense of humor, his encyclopedic memory, the intense devotion and loyalty of his friendship. They shared memories of a man who never shied away from celebrating his successes but retained such modesty that he included in his ninth book a credit to the 8-year-old son of a friend who had sent him an elementary school paper on the topic. Nearly 100 friends of John Walter Lord Jr., the Baltimore-born author credited with sparking the world's love affair with the Titanic, gathered at Gilman School yesterday to honor one of the school's most famous alumni.

There is nothing more evocative than looking at or touching an object from, or meeting someone associated with, a dramatic historical event. Simply said, it puts you there. And that has been my good fortune throughout my life when it came to people and things associated with the RMS Titanic, which sank April 15, 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, after colliding with an iceberg off the Grand Banks. My first encounter with the Titanic came on Christmas morning in 1955, when my mother gave my father a copy of the recently published "A Night to Remember," by Baltimore-born and -raised author Walter Lord, whom I would get to know years later.

Two New York authors, Jenny Lawrence and John Maxtone-Graham, shook off the rain and chill of a dreary fall Thursday in Baltimore and quietly stood in the well of the Gilman School auditorium waiting for 255 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students to take their seats. They were there to tell the students about one of their own: Walter Lord, the noted historian and writer who graduated from Gilman in 1935. Christopher Lee, founding partner, director and CEO of AIG Highstar, and his wife, Susan Ginkel, who is a member of the Gilman board, have two sons at the school and endowed a scholarship in Walter Lord's name.

The phone rang the other day, and it was Jenny Lawrence calling from her home in New York City. "Walter would have been 92 this week," she said. The Walter she was referring to was Walter Lord, more formally John Walter Lord Jr., the author born and raised in Baltimore who sparked the Titanic craze with the publication in 1955 of his book, "A Night to Remember." Lawrence, an author and editor, recently published "The Way It Was: Walter Lord on His Life and Books," a memoir she assembled from unpublished autobiographical material he had left behind after his death in 2002, and tape-recorded sessions she had made and transcribed in the mid-1980s.

They recalled him as a prankster, a lifelong learner and a perpetual kid at heart. They reminisced about his infectious sense of humor, his encyclopedic memory, the intense devotion and loyalty of his friendship. They shared memories of a man who never shied away from celebrating his successes but retained such modesty that he included in his ninth book a credit to the 8-year-old son of a friend who had sent him an elementary school paper on the topic. Nearly 100 friends of John Walter Lord Jr., the Baltimore-born author credited with sparking the world's love affair with the Titanic, gathered at Gilman School yesterday to honor one of the school's most famous alumni.

Services John Walter Lord Jr.: A memorial service for John Walter Lord Jr., the Baltimore-born historian and author of A Night to Remember who died May 19, will be held at noon June 10 at the New York Historical Society, 2 W. 77th St. and Central Park West, in New York City. Gilman School has planned a "Celebration of the Life of Gilman and Baltimore Son, Walter Lord," at 2 p.m. June 16 in its alumni auditorium, on the campus at 5407 Roland Ave. Information: New York Historical Society at 212-873-3400; Gilman School at 410-323-7176.

In his preface to the 1976 edition of A Night to Remember, Walter Lord wrote: "In a way the Titanic has proved even more unsinkable than the White Star Line claimed. Sixty-four years have now passed since the `Convergence of the Twain,' as Thomas Hardy called it, yet interest remains unabated in the great ship that went down in the night." In 1998, amid the latest Titanic frenzy caused by the release of James Cameron's film and a Broadway musical of the same name, Lord leaned across the desk in his apartment on New York's Upper East Side and cheerfully told a visitor, "I've succumbed to it."

A century ago this April 15, Baltimoreans, like the rest of the world, awakened to the news that the great White Star Liner RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage to New York, had been in a collision late the night before, hitting an iceberg about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland in frigid Atlantic waters. In a Sunday, April 14, dispatch from Cape Race, Newfoundland, The Baltimore Sun reported that at 10:25 p.m. (Baltimore time) the Titanic had struck an iceberg and had called for "immediate assistance.

BEFORE THERE was James Cameron or Leo DiCaprio or Celine Dion warbling "My Heart Will Go On," there was Walter Lord. The younger generation discovered the mystery, drama and romance of the great doomed passenger ship Titanic by way of a popular movie, but chances are good that their parents and grandparents became enthralled by the same story through the masterly prose of Mr. Lord, author of A Night to Remember, a phenomenally popular account of the...

BEFORE THERE was James Cameron or Leo DiCaprio or Celine Dion warbling "My Heart Will Go On," there was Walter Lord. The younger generation discovered the mystery, drama and romance of the great doomed passenger ship Titanic by way of a popular movie, but chances are good that their parents and grandparents became enthralled by the same story through the masterly prose of Mr. Lord, author of A Night to Remember, a phenomenally popular account of the...

NEW YORK -- It was a rainy afternoon in 1927 when 10-year-old John Walter Lord Jr. made the discovery that would forever change his life.In the library at the Towson farm of his aunt, Dorothea Deford, the Baltimore boy pulled down from a shelf a slim black volume titled "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic."The book was written by Lawrence Beesely, a young science teacher at Dulwich College in England who had been a second-class passenger on the doomed ocean liner that had sunk so tragically and unexpectedly on April 15, 1912 -- 86 years ago today.