BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99.

Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the "practically unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

She died Saturday at her home in Shrewsbury, said Ronald E. Johnson, vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel in Worcester, Massachusetts.

"She went to sleep peacefully," he said.

Asplund's mother, Selma, and another brother, Felix, who was 3, also survived the Titanic sinking in the early morning of April 15, 1912.

Asplund was the last Titanic survivor with actual memories of the sinking, but she shunned publicity and rarely spoke about the events.

At least two other survivors are living, but they were too young to have memories of the disaster. Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, was 10 months old and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, was 2 months old.

What her mother remembered
The Asplund family had boarded the ship in Southampton, England, as third-class passengers on their way back to Worcester from their ancestral homeland, Sweden, where they had spent several years.

Asplund's mother described the sinking in an interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspaper shortly after she and her two children arrived in the city.

Selma Asplund said the family went to the Titanic's upper deck after the ship struck the iceberg.

"I could see the icebergs for a great distance around ... It was cold and the little ones were cuddling close to one another and trying to keep from under the feet of the many excited people ... My little girl, Lillie, accompanied me, and my husband said 'Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats.' He smiled as he said it."

Because they lost all of their possessions and money, the city of Worcester held a fundraiser and a benefit concert that together brought in about $2,000 for the surviving Asplunds.

Lillian Asplund never married and worked at secretarial jobs in the Worcester area most of her life. She retired early to care for her mother, who was described as having never gotten over the tragedy.

Selma Asplund died on the 52nd anniversary of the sinking in 1964 at age 91. Felix Asplund died on March 1, 1983, at age 73.

A memorial service will be held Wednesday, Johnson said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

bummer...

You should instead be happy for her. It sucks to live to that age. I just want to die at 80.

Reminds me of how we are losing WWI and WWII vets...

i heard about this on the tonight show, Jay made a pretty rude joke saying after all that time he almost made it to shore, come on now

mean joke but jay funny though
someone said 80 naah i be happy with 60

Heck I ain't going out til I'm at least 300.

LOL not if you see my grand mother, trust me

I read about that as well, poor taste.

Isn't that what surgery is for?? I wanna live forever, or at least until I die.

i didnt think theres was any survivers left as its so close to the 100ths anni

bet it was hard to carry those memories all those years.

My g.mother is always complaining. She always keeps saying she wants to die, but God wont let her. It's kind of funny how she tries to blame it on God. The even more funny thing is, even though she wants to die, she's always so concerned about her health I just hope she doesn't live to be as old as this lady

Makes you think... strugles trough the water to survive a collied with a iceberg and what for ? When you die 90 years later anyway, I mean, what`s the point ?

Well that 90 years of life, methinks...

You mean you're not already?!



Nihilist much?

I didn't know there were so few survivors left, but I suppose since it was pre-WWI, it's not surprising. There aren't even that many WWI vets left.

I just wanna live as long as I am supposed to

im happy for her, obviously that one night affected her whole life, and now she's at rest

im happy for her, obviously that one night affected her whole life, and now she's at rest

im happy for her, obviously that one night affected her whole life, and now she's at rest

im happy for her, obviously that one night affected her whole life, and now she's at rest

Not til my next birthday. Ageist.

My great grandpa (who I hate, because he's a jerk) is going to be 92 soon, and could probably go out jogging if he wanted to. He's insanely fit. I wouldn't mind living to be 92 as long as I was like my grandpa. I wouldn't want to be 92, sitting in a nursing home, with no idea what's going on.

OK WE GET THE F*CKING POINT, SHE'S DEAD, YOU'RE HAPPY

Man, the stories she could have told...

I know that I actually enjoy listening to the elderly tell their stories. Some of them love to tell it, but the ones that are more entertaining are the ones that you kind of have to coax the story from.

Maybe that's just me looking at life from a writer's stand point.

my great aunt's (there were two of them) were meant to go onto the titanic...

...but they were late and missed it (for the best really), they still got to America though on another ship. but I can only guess what their expressions must have looked like when they read about the incident in the papers...