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George Dunton Widener (June 16, 1861 - April 15, 1912) was an American businessman who died in the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''. ==Biography== Born in Philadelphia, he was the eldest son of Hannah Josephine Dunton (1836-1896) and the extremely wealthy streetcar magnate Peter A. B. Widener (1834-1915). George D. Widener joined his father's business and eventually took over the running of the Philadelphia Traction Company, overseeing the development of cable and electric streetcar operations. He also served on the board of directors of several important area businesses. A patron of the arts, Widener was a Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1883, he married Eleanor Elkins, the daughter of his father's business partner, William Lukens Elkins. They had two sons, Harry Elkins Widener (1885-1912), George Dunton Widener, Jr. (1889-1971), and a daughter, Eleanor Widener Dixon (1891-1953). In 1912, George D. Widener, his wife, and their son Harry traveled to Paris, France, with original intentions to find a chef for Widener's new Philadelphia hotel, The Ritz Carlton. The Wideners booked their return passage on RMS ''Titanic''. After the ship struck an iceberg, Widener placed his wife and her maid in a lifeboat. The women were rescued by the steamship RMS ''Carpathia'', but George D. Widener and his son Harry both went down with the ship. Their bodies, if recovered, were not identified. A memorial service for them was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania where stained glass windows were dedicated in their memory. Two weeks after their untimely deaths on the Titanic, Widener's daughter Eleanor married Fitz Eugene Dixon at the family estate in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. George Widener had commissioned Horace Trumbauer to design and oversee construction of ''Miramar'', a French neoclassical-style mansion bordering Bellevue Avenue on Aquidneck Island at Newport, Rhode Island. Intended as a summer home, it was still in the design stage at the time of his death.〔(''Providence Journal''- December 2, 2006 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「George Dunton Widener」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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