It’s been Titanic-mania all week everywhere including with my grade 5 class. We’ve been working on a project that develops a plan that might have saved more of the passengers on the Titanic. The students have really enjoyed drawing up some very interesting alternatives that just might have saved more people. While doing this, one of my students got her Dad involved and he printed a list of passengers which she brought to school. I felt a cold chill when I saw the name Pelsmaker Alfons de! This name is not as common as Smith is. (did you notice the number of Smiths on board?) When I went home to tell my husband about this he said that Alfons is his Dad’s real name! His Dad (deceased about 1 yr) came from Belgium in approximately 1938. We got to thinking that there aren’t very many De Pelsmaekers in Canada and this might be a coincidence or Alfons de Pelsmaker might have been a relative of my husband’s family. Mrs. Cheri DePelsmaeker