My full name is Josephine Rose Dawson. My story, while not really very important at all, is one you'll want to hear.
To tell my story, I have to start with my parents. Their story is so incredible, I never get tired of hearing it. They met on Titanic in 1912. Yes, that Titanic. The ship everyone thought was unsinkable, but ironically hit an iceberg and ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic on its maiden voyage.
Anyway, my parents met on Titanic. My father was Jack Dawson, a 20-year-old artist with nothing but ten dollars, some drawings, and the clothes he was wearing. My mother was Rose DeWitt-Bukater, an obscenely rich, first class, 17-year-old girl engaged to a 30-year-old steel tycoon. I thought she was joking the first time she told me that, but she and my father both swear it's true.
So my mother and father met on the boat, fell in love in two days, and decided to run off together when the boat docked. Of course the boat did not dock. Apparently, while the boat was sinking, my mother swam through freezing cold sea water to rescue my father who had been arrested and chained to a pipe. They then managed to get to the top deck, where my mother got on a lifeboat only to jump back onto the sinking ship to be with my father. Then, they ran back down into the sinking ship, chased by my mother's fiancee who was shooting at them.
They both went into the water when the ship finally went down, but were lucky enough to find a wood door that they both floated on until a lifeboat came back. Staying out of the water kept them just warm enough that they didn't freeze to death.
I expect that part of the story is exaggerated a little, but even after they got to New York, they didn't get their happily ever after. Don't worry, they do eventually... sort of. Even though my mother was going under my father's name the evil fiancee found out they were both still alive and wanted to get my mother back.
However, my parents were not easy to find, because they lived an exciting, spontaneous life. They didn't own a house and just got up and left whenever they wanted. They've been all over the country. Eventually, the evil fiancee tracked them down, but only because he found the record of them getting married in Santa Monica a year after Titanic sank.
My father wanted to get married the minute they arrived in New York, but my mother refused. She says it's because they were so in love they didn't need a piece of paper to verify they'd be together forever, but my father says it's because she was scared of marriage since she'd just been engaged to the evil fiancee.
Anyway, the evil fiancee tracked them down, confronted my parents and then realized he couldn't do anything because they were already married. He tried to shoot my father and instead shot my mother in the arm. She went to the hospital, had the bullet removed, and was fine. He went to prison, paid a huge sum of money to get out, married the first suitable girl he met and inherited his millions. My mother says he's dead now, but won't tell me how.
So my parents spent the next four years having all sorts of adventures all over the country, just like they decided they would back on Titanic. Then, in 1917, America declared war on Germany.
My father was only 25 in 1917, so he knew he'd be drafted. And he was. In August of 1918, my father was sent overseas to fight. The war ended three months later, and he returned home thankfully alive and whole, but shocked by what he had seen. He says the war was like nothing he'd ever seen, even more horrible than Titanic sinking.
Now I'm sure you've all been wondering: When do I come in? Right after the war actually. A few weeks before my father left, my mother asked him about settling down and raising a family. They'd been having exciting adventures for 6 years but they both wanted to eventually have children. So right before my father shipped out, they bought a small house. I have no idea how they afforded it, since they always tell me they could barely afford food, but they must have saved up some money, or maybe sold something.
Anyway, my father told me he wanted to buy the house because he knew he'd be going overseas very soon and didn't want to leave my mother living alone on the streets. It was a good thing too, because almost immediately after my father left, my mother realized she was two months pregnant with yours truly.
The entire time my father was at war my mother was terrified. Obviously she would have been terrified my father would die even without a baby in the picture, but she also knew that she and I would have a very, very hard time without my father.
But of course my father did come back and that's when their story ends.
Actually, that's when my story begins, and though theirs continues, my overrides theirs.
A/N:Please review and tell me if there's anything anachronistic or just plain stupid. I promise it will be more interesting next chapter, this was just setting up the context.