PHOTO: COTTAGE GROVE MUSEUM The lucky coat on display at Cottage Grove Museum.
COTTAGE GROVE – On Thursday, Aug. 18 at 6:30 p.m. The Coast Fork Brewing Company and the Cottage Grove Museum will host a benefit to raise awareness of Cottage Grove resident and Titanic survivor Marion Wright Woolcott and her Lucky Coat, which is on exhibit at the Cottage Grove Museum. The event will be held at the Coast Fork Brewing Company, 106 S. 6th St., in Cottage Grove.
A portion of the sales of “Old Lucky Coat Ale,” created in honor of the coat that kept Marion warm during her harrowing escape from death, will be donated to the museum. There will also be a raffle for gift baskets featuring a Titanic theme, a private museum tour for you and your guests, and a growler of the Old Lucky Coat Ale.
Museum staff and volunteers will share the tale of Marion’s journey across the Atlantic to join her future husband here in Cottage Grove – a trip that was interrupted when the maiden trip of the Titanic was met with disaster. The young bride-to-be survived in part due to people she met on board the Titanic and because her thick “Lucky Coat” kept her warm in the lifeboat and on board the decks of the rescue vessel Carpathia.
Coast Fork Brewery, Stephen Mathys, created the rich North England style Old Ale to honor and remember the Lucky Coat and Marion’s Titanic journey. He will describe the brewing of this delicious draft and the history of “Old” Ales. It is possible some of the 15,000 bottles of ale loaded on to the Titanic were “Old” Ales.