“We were in fog,’’ she recalled. “And I remember my father saying, ‘If they don’t slow this thing down in fog like this, something is going to happen.’ ’’

Madge Young Nickerson was just 14 in July 1956, living with her family in Europe. And then, just hours from port, her father suggested a late-night walk around the deck.

ALTON, N.H. — If she closes her eyes, she can see the young girl again — a precocious teenager, lounging on the luxury liner’s sun deck, dressing for formal dinners with the captain, accumulating shipboard buddies as they steamed for New York Harbor and home leave.


If anyone would know that, her father, Robert T. Young, would. He was in charge of Western European operations for the American Bureau of Shipping, which set standards for merchant ships.

His concern proved prescient. Later that night, just after 11 on July 25 as Madge stood in her bathroom aboard the Andrea Doria brushing her teeth, she felt a jolt. They were somewhere just south of Nantucket.

“All of a sudden, there was a terrible crash,’’ she would later write in her journal. “I fell into the bathtub. The crash felt like two hard bumps. There was also a terrible jarring noise with it.’’

The Andrea Doria was mortally wounded after being struck by the Swedish ship Stockholm, steaming for Europe. Five aboard the Stockholm were killed. The Andrea Doria lost 46 passengers and crew. More than 1,600 others were rescued before the great Italian liner slipped beneath the waves 11 hours later.

In the moments after impact, modern-day movie-makers would probably portray pandemonium. But Madge Nickerson remembers something more orderly. “To me, it was a lark,’’ she said. “I remember thinking, ‘Gee, I wonder if they’ll write something about this in the newspaper?’ Little did I know.’’


As the ship’s officers asked for calm, life jackets were donned. Lifeboats were launched, kisses exchanged, rope ladders navigated, and, presently, Madge found herself aboard the rescue vessel Ile de France.

The Italian liner Andrea Doria leaned to right as it sank off the coast of Nantucket. Globe Staff/File 1956

From 500 yards away, she watched the Andrea Doria’s three swimming pools being “emptied the hard way.’’

“I still didn’t think the ship was going to sink,’’ she told me. When they arrived in New York, a reporter stuck a microphone in her mother’s face and demanded: “Madame, do you consider this a miracle?’’

“I don’t remember what she said, but it wasn’t very nice,’’ Madge Nickerson, now 74, told me. “She just wanted to get out of there.’’

The next day, she visited the hospital room of one of her shipboard buddies, who, remarkably had been scooped out of her bunk by the Stockholm’s bow and was found unconscious but alive in the wreckage of the Swedish ship.

Madge Nickerson and I spoke on Monday at the wonderful and rambling old farmhouse where she and her husband of 39 years, Nick, have made a home just a short walk from the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. Meantime, a couple hundred miles away, a team from a Washington state-based exploration company was back where 14-year-old Madge Young was 60 summers ago.

The explorers from OceanGate have a five-person submersible to obtain high-definition video and 3D sonar images of the once-floating palace that now lies in ruin at the bottom of the Atlantic.

If they look closely enough, perhaps they might find the dental retainer Madge Young left in her cabin’s bathroom sink that foggy night, or her fountain pen, silver charm bracelet, and leather handbag — belongings she dutifully cataloged for an insurance company.


The Andrea Doria took those to the bottom. But the shipwreck left intact the essence of Madge Young, the little girl who grew into adulthood, graduated from Tufts, and built an accomplished career and a family, including three grandchildren who have acute appreciation for what’s truly precious.

Thomas Farragher is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at thomas.farragher@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @FarragherTom.