Mrs. Astor

WFB fell of the radar screen so I missed his column of August 8th wherein he relates the sad story of an old friend, Mrs. Astor.

...Mrs. Astor? Her husband died in 1959 and she settled down in her apartment in New York and disbursed $200 million to people and institutions in need....

She sent money everywhere, not least to blighted parts of the city where John Jacob Astor amassed the fortune which five generations later she was spiritedly dissipating. But in 1983 she resolved to train her energies and focus her philanthropy on the world of books. She is even today, at age 104, the honorary chairman of the board of trustees of the New York Public Library and who knows, they might figure out a way to keep her presence in sight in the board rooms when she has passed on.

One hundred and four? John Jacob Astor? Oh, those Astors.

In 1953, eleven months after Charles Marshall's death, she married her third and final husband, Vincent Astor (1891-1959), the chairman of the board of Newsweek magazine and the last notably rich American member of the famous Astor family. The only son of Titanic victim Colonel John Jacob Astor IV (1864-1912) and his first wife, Ava Lowle Willing, he had been married and divorced twice before and was known to have a difficult personality.

History I can kind of keep straight, but society makes my head spin. Still, these stories fascinate. In college once an old socialist professor moaned some dirge about the "growing disparity between rich and poor" and I replied that I thought it would be a pretty boring world that didn't have fabulously wealthy people in it.

It would, too. Good for Mrs. Astor, and the best of luck to her.