Amalija Knavs

Amalija Knavs (née Ulčnik; July 9, 1945 – January 9, 2024) was a Slovenian-American woman who was the mother of Melania Trump, who is the wife of former US president Donald Trump and was the First Lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

Knavs and her husband, Viktor, became citizens of the United States in 2018 using a method sometimes called legal visa via United States Embassy.

Early life

Amalija Ulčnik was born on July 9, 1945, in Judendorf-Straßengel, Austria. She was raised there and in Slovenia in Yugoslavia. Her mother, Amalija (Gliha) Ulčnik, was a seamstress and homemaker and her father, Anton Ulčnik, was a cobbler and later on a red-onion farmer.

In her youth she worked on her family's onion farm. From 1964 to 1997, she worked at a state-owned children's clothing factory where she created and monitored textile patterns.

Knavs met her husband, Viktor, a member of the Sevnica Communist Party in 1966. After marrying, they lived in Sevnica, Slovenia. The couple had two daughters: Ines (born 1968) and Melania (born 1970).

Later life and death

By August 2017, Amalija and her husband were living in New York City. It was later confirmed that Melania sponsored their green cards. In May 2018, Amalija was in attendance for the White House Rose Garden ceremony which saw Melania launch her Be Best public awareness campaign. In August 2018, Amalija and Viktor Knavs became U.S. citizens after taking an oath at a New York City courthouse. The New York Times described her as not adhering in public to the "stereotypes of an American grandmother".

On January 9, 2024, Knavs died at a hospital in Miami, Florida, at the age of 78. She had been "very ill" since late 2023, with sources confirming to People that Melania skipped a Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party to attend to her bedside.

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