Background
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 " two of the largest fortunes in the city.
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 " two of the largest fortunes in the city.
Widener later married Harvard professor Alexander Hamilton Rice, Junior., 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. On April 12 they embarked at Cherbourg on the Rated Maximum Sinusoidal 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." (Another string, worth $250,000, had been lost One headline read: "Explorer Weds Titanic Widow"):20 She gave up her Philadelphia home, dividing her time among Newport, New York, and Paris when not accompanying Rice in his explorations. On one such foray Widener became "the first white woman to enter the Rio Negro country caused a great sensation among the natives.
She was kindly treated and was looked upon with reverence. Natives showered her with gifts, and she made many friends with the women of the tribes by her gifts of beads, knives and other trinkets." A 1920 trip on which Widener "went further up the Amazon than any white woman had penetrated" went less smoothly.
"The party warded off an attack by savages and killed two cannibals"—"scantily clad.. very ferocious and of large stature"—though "as luck would have it, remained on the specially constructed yacht" during this phase of the explorations.
That particular trip "was abandoned on the advice of Indian guides, but the Rices ventured several more times into the jungles." (A subsequent headline read: "Explorer Rice Denies That He Was Eaten By Cannibals") In 1937 Widener died in a Paris store.