Earlier this month I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting the Molly Brown house in Denver, Colo. We were wrapping up a family vacation out west and spent a few days in Denver while my husband attended a conference. After spending a week and a half visiting family, my daughter Margaret and I were able to take these days to just explore and be tourists.

I’m not sure when I first learned about Molly (Margaret) Tobin Brown, but I remember visiting Hannibal, Mo., (her birthplace) in 1980 on a family trip and already knowing about her. We visited the Tom Sawyer sites there and had fun with that, but I recall asking my parents if we could also go see where Molly Brown had lived. I purchased a postcard that day of her in her later years, dressed in a fancy gown. I marveled that a girl could grow up in this small frontier town and could go on to do so many wonderful things with her life.

I knew the story of her moving out to Colorado in her teens with her brother and working hard to support herself. She later met and married J.J. Brown and together they worked in the silver mines. When their mine struck gold, they became millionaires and moved to Denver where they built their beautiful home on “Millionaire Row.” Their neighbors didn’t quite know what to make of these two backwoods people who had just moved in; they were loud and brash, they had boisterous parties at their mansion, and they lacked the social refinement that others deemed necessary to live on Pennsylvania Avenue.

However, it was this down to earth attitude that helped Molly and J.J. see what needed to be done in Denver and Leadville (where their mine was located) and to use their new-found wealth to make changes to help those that were less fortunate. They provided for children who were made orphans when there was a mine disaster. In Denver they worked to install public baths in the courthouse and advocate for more public parks to help the well-being of those who were struggling.

These were things I didn’t know about Molly Brown prior to visiting her mansion in Denver. I knew she was tough, but I didn’t realize how compassionate she was. I knew her story of being on the Titanic and how her strength and fortitude helped her to continue to row the lifeboat that she found herself in as the ship was sinking and to encourage the others in the lifeboat to help out and not give up. This is where she gained the moniker “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

In the musical that bears that name (written by Iowan Meredith Wilson) she makes this statement: “I hate the word ‘Down’ but I love the word ‘Up,’ cause ‘Up’ means hope and that’s just what I got.” It is this determination to keep going and never to give up that propelled her in the face of disaster to preserve not only her life but the lives of everyone else in her lifeboat.

I learned something else at the mansion that was very profound. Once Molly Brown made it to the Carpathia (the ship that rescued the Titanic survivors), she didn’t sit and relax. She immediately went among the survivors from steerage to see how they were doing. Because she had traveled so exten- sively around the world, she knew many languages and could communicate with these passengers from so many different countries. She discovered that they had lost everything they owned, in addition to many family members.

In the face of this additional tragedy, Molly Brown decided to act. Yes, she had lost clothing and jewelry when the ship went down, but she still had possessions and a great deal of money back in the United States. She pledged $500 (around $16,000 in today’s money) and encouraged other wealthy survivors to do the same. I was impressed with a quote of hers posted on a wall in one of the rooms of the house: “God knows I can do little enough to save these poor souls around me that are out of their senses….How can you expect me to leave these suffering people when my own life has been spared?”

Touring Molly Brown’s house left me changed. I had finally done something I had always wanted to do, but I had gained something more. I learned things I had never known about Molly Brown and these things left me inspired. She never forgot where she had come from and she used her privilege to help others in need. It’s one thing to contribute to a cause, it’s far greater to be right there in the trenches (or in the lifeboat) working to bring relief to those who are suffering. People are in need all around us. Will we heed the call to help?