Eleanor Elkins Widener
| Eleanor Elkins Widener | |
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Eleanore Elkins September 21, 1861or May 21, 1862 Philadelphia |
| Died | July 13, 1937 (aged 75) Paris |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Resting place | Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia |
| Residence | Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Gift of Widener Library |
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Eleanor Elkins Widener, née Eleanore Elkins (later known as Eleanor Elkins Widener Rice or Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice; c.1862 – July 13, 1937) was an American heiress, socialite, philanthropist, and adventuress best remembered for her donation to Harvard University of the Widener Library—a memorial to her elder son Harry Elkins Widener, who (along with her first husband, George Dunton Widener) perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
Widener later married Harvard professor Alexander Hamilton Rice, Jr., a surgeon and explorer. She subsequently accompanied Rice on a number of expeditions, including one on which she "went further up the Amazon than any white woman had penetrated" and, purportedly, he was attacked by cannibals.
Widener was the daughter of Philadelphia streetcar magnate William Lukens Elkins. In 1883 she married George Dunton Widener, son of her father's business partner, thereby "[uniting] two of the largest fortunes in the city. She was known as one of the city's most beautiful women."
In later marriage they lived in her father-in-law's 110-room Pennsylvania mansion, Lynnewood Hall. Their children were Harry Elkins Widener, George Dunton Widener, Jr., and Eleanor (Widener) Dixon.
In 1912 Widener and her husband traveled to Paris, with their elder son Harry, in search of a chef for their new hotel, Philadelphia's Ritz Carlton. On April 12 they embarked at Cherbourg on the RMS Titanic for their return to America. George, Harry, and their valet all perished in the Titanic's sinking; but Widener, with her maid, "survived the Titanic by manning the oars in a lifeboat."
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