If you ever have the chance to go to St. Louis within the next few months, I recommend making a pit stop to the St. Louis Science Center. It has an amazingly special exhibition that is worth spending a few hours exploring what is in the city.

This exhibition has been in the city before, but this time around new artifacts have been added. The Titanic Artifact Exhibition shows visitors the before, during and after the Titanic’s sinking through the display of artifacts and passengers’ stories.

As you start through the exhibition, there are different types of artifacts, ranging from a pair of glasses to a suitcase to wine and beer bottles with the wine or beer still in them.

The exhibition also offers the chance for visitors to experience specific portions of the White Star Line’s largest superliner from a hallway from the first-class area to the famous Grand Staircase.

One of the artifacts is a piece of the cherub, which was at the base of the staircase – the only artifact in that portion of the exhibition. Although the Grand Staircase was never found, pieces of it still remain.

One of the reasons why I like this exhibition so much is the surprise given at the end of the walk-through.

Before you enter, a member of the Science Center staff hands you a boarding pass. There are two piles of these boarding passes – one for men and one for women. On this boarding pass, there is a passenger’s name, information on the person and a specific class you are on.

At the end of your adventure throughout the story of Titanic, there lies a list of passengers’ names.That list is broken down by class. Each class is then broken down by survivors and deaths.

You might see where this is going.

I had Alma Cornelia Palsson, a third-class passenger who was from Velinge, Sweden. Her husband, Nils, had found work as a tram conductor in Chicago, and Alma and her four children were traveling to New York to find work.

For me, it was an interesting experience to find out whether my passenger lived or died. In the case for most of the men, the answer is simple.

Most of the men who were aboard Titanic did not survive. For the women, it is still a question.

Depending on where the passenger was on the ship, that determined if they survived or not.

The question: Did Alma survive or die?

It was amazing to see what was brought up from the wreckage of this world-famous ship.

The story of the Titanic has always been an interest of mine.

Despite the countless movies made about the sinking, to see the actual artifacts and to read actual stories of the 2,228 passengers on board goes beyond what those movies describe. The real thing does not compare to what Hollywood can do.

Oh, and by the way, I was one of the 538 third-class passengers who … died.