Violet Madeline travelled with her mother Elizabeth Anne Mellinger (née Maidment) after Elizabeth had gained a position with the Colgate family in Vermont. The second class passengers spoke with Charles Cresson Jones, a first class passenger who was also bound for the same location. He showed the pair photos of the town.

Madeline and her mother survived the sinking on Lifeboat 14 and later transferred to boat 12 by Fifth Officer Lowe.  Madeline spoke to the Toronto Star on 15 April 1974:

"We were asleep in our berths when a man banged on our door and told  us to put on warm clothes and lifebelts and to get on deck."

She described being thrown into a boat and she shivered in the cold as she heard the cries of the victims around her.

"I could see the lights of the ship starting to go under water, then  soundlessly, perhaps a mile away, it just went down. It was gone. Oh  yes, the sky was very black and the stars were very bright. They told me  the people in the water were singing, but I knew they were screaming."

She visited the widow of Charles Cresson Jones in Bennington before returning to England but both her and her mother emmigrated once more in 1916, this time, to Canada. She married David Daniel Mann in 1921 and they had four sons. 

On April 15 1939 she attended a reunion dinner with her mother in Toronto, along with Emma Bliss and John Collins. In the 1950s she shared her memories with Walter Lord for his research on A Night to Remember and she would attend the Titanic Historical Society convention in the 1970s.