This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Third-Grader, Unsinkable Ship + Iceberg

Three years ago, Danville 8-year-old Mason Hanshaw became interested in the Titanic disaster. The Creekside Elementary School student has since become an authority on the subject.

If your child is awake at 4:15 AM, there had better be a good reason. If it happens to be spring break, that goes double.

Last Tuesday, April 10, Danville residents Shawn and Stephanie Hanshaw’s 8-year-old son, Mason, set his alarm at that early hour in order to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the launch of the RMS Titanic.

For Mason, that was an excellent reason to wake up early.

Find out what's happening in Walnut Creekwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Mason calculated the time difference to ensure he was awake at just the moment the ship would have left the docks in Southhampton, England. He happily celebrated the anniversary even as the whole house slept on.

Of course, the Titanic is more famous for what happened five days into its maiden voyage. The British luxury passenger liner, the largest of the time and billed as “unsinkable,” did just that on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

Find out what's happening in Walnut Creekwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Belmont, Mass., Patch had an account of the tale of Caroline Lane (Lampson) Brown, the final passenger to board the last lifeboat. Her account was discovered in a back issue of the town historical society's newsletter.

In Danville, thanks to Mason’s passion, which started as a first-grader at , every member of the family, down to his 3-year-old brother, has become uncommonly aware of the details of the ship and the disaster.

When there is a birthday, invariably Mason will make a Titanic-themed birthday card, says his mom. Mason’s siblings also are pros at building LEGO reproductions of the ship, and reenacting key pieces of the disaster alongside their big brother.

Mason’s interest began when he read a Magic Tree House series book about the ship, and the tragedy that was the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history.

Mason’s mom wasn’t so sure it was good to encourage his early and consuming interest in the subject at the time. She worried that it was too morbid and sad an event for such a young child to repeatedly revisit.

She soon learned, however, that there was no stopping Mason’s zeal.

Mason has read several books, watched movies and documentaries, and has drawn several hundred depictions of the ship, all from differing perspectives and at different points in its voyage and sinking. His mom says Mason has enlisted her help to research additional details.

Explaining the Titanic’s interest for him, Mason simply says that the ship “just catches my eye, any time I see it.”

Mason’s drawings reveal his interest in the design elements of the ship, such as the fourth smoke stack that wasn’t operational, but was built to make the ship “look more impressive;” or the famous dome over the iconic grand staircase, that let in light, despite appearing encased in a room from the deck.

Mason also marvels at the mistakes that contributed to the magnitude of the disaster (around 1,500 are thought to have perished, but the numbers have never been precisely established). It astounds him that the ship was only equipped with 16 lifeboats for 2,227 passengers.

“How can that be?” he asks. Even an elementary school student knows that the math clearly doesn’t work.

For a ship that was an engineering marvel, Mason’s assessment of the one thing they could have done differently to avert the disaster is surprisingly low-tech: binoculars.

Evidently the key for the box containing the ship’s binoculars didn’t make it on board, and subsequently the lookout in the ship’s crow’s nest didn’t have any way to spot the iceberg earlier.

Mason isn’t alone in his fascination with the iconic ship. As many other events pass into history, the sinking of the Titanic remains compelling to people of all ages, perhaps more so on this year's 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

Mason’s dad, Shawn, says that he thinks the disaster keeps his son’s interest, as well as his own, because of the uncanny series of mishaps and missteps that combined to produce the “perfect storm.” Any change in those circumstances could have prevented the disaster, and is also what makes it so sad, he says.

Through Mason's many drawings and repeated retellings of the facts, the ship and its passengers are very alive in their household.

In the future, Mason would love to build a reproduction of the inside of the Titanic, but he worries that the museum in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., has already covered that territory.

That destination is on the list of must-sees for the young fan, and he’s been urging his parents to plan a family trip there.

He has also been working on a LEGO YouTube mini-movie about the ship, but he's a tough director in his own right, and wants to get it just right.

Mason's plans for the April 15 anniversary of the ship’s ultimate descent under the icy water were to remember the ship and its doomed passengers by checking out the depiction by another similarly obsessed fan and film director. The family had plans to see James Cameron’s Titanic movie in the theater in 3-D.

It’s another uncanny detail about the Titanic’s role in family lore, says Mason’s parents. It was their second day when they saw the movie when it was originally released in theaters.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?