Amalie Henriette Gieger was born on 26 August 1876 in Königsberg, Prussia but other details about her early life remain unknown. She was the sister of Bertha Auguste Gieger; Louise Blasinski; Auguste Schmidt en Eduard Gieger. In America they called her Emily.
She first appeared in the USA in 1900, departing from Liverpool and arriving in New York aboard the Lucania on October 30th. She was shown arriving in New York in May of 1903 aboard St. Paul. In May of 1905 she arrived aboard Kronprinz Wilhelm and in September of 1907 aboard the Adriatic and by which time she was employed by the Widener Family. She had again taken voyage to the USA in May of 1909 aboard the Mauretania. Her sister Bertha Gieger lived at Elisabeth Strasse, Bromberg in Posen, Germany (modern day Bydgosczcz, Poland) but by the 1920's and 1930's was a resident of Dresden.
Amalie was shown on the 1910 US census as a maid of the George Dutton Widener family at their home in Cheltenham, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Titanic[]
Following a trip to Europe with the Widener's she boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg as a First Class passenger and travelling on the same ticket as her was the Widener Family and their valet Edwin Keeping. She occupied cabin C-130.
On the night of April 14, Titanic had struck an iceberg. When it was established by Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews that she would founder, the lifeboats were prepared. During the evacuation, the Widener's went up on deck. While the ship was sinking, the group waited near lifeboat 4 for around an hour.
At around 1:45 AM, lifeboat 4 started letting people in the boat. Amalie and Eleanor boarded the lifeboat, leaving George, Harry, and Edwin. lifeboat 4 was the 10th boat to reach the RMS Carpathia around 6:55 AM. She later found out that George, Harry, and Edwin all died in the sinking. Only Edwin's body was recovered.
Later life[]
It appears that she remained in Eleanor's employ for the rest of her life; when she sailed aboard Pancras from Brazil in October of 1924, she gave her contact as Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice, Eleanor's second husband. She was shown arriving in New York on October 31st, 1914 aboard New Amsterdam, having departed from Rotterdam. In May of 1922, she sailed aboard Mauretania, still described as a lady's maid. The last time she was shown travelling was in September of 1932 when she was a passenger aboard the Deutschland.
Amalie applied for US citizenship on January 28th, 1925; at the time her address was 5th Avenue and she was described as standing at 5'4 with brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion, weighing 128 lbs. She became a naturalized citizen on December 19th, 1927, by which point her address was West 148th Street. She appears on the 1930 census living at 144th Street, Manhattan and she had no stated profession. Amalie never married and died in Manhattan on November 14th, 1933 and was later cremated at Garden State Crematorium in North Bergen on November 18th, 1933. The ashes were handed over to the 7th Merritt Funeral Home.