Madeleine_Astor

Madeleine Astor

Madeleine Force Astor (June 19, 1893 – March 27, 1940) the wife of John Jacob Astor IV.

Early life

Madeleine Talmage Force was born on June 19, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York to William Hurlbut Force and Katherine Arvilla Tamlage. She had a sister, Katherine Emmons Force.

She first met John Jacob Astor IV, one of the richest men in the United States, in Bar Harbor, Maine while she was still in school. On September 9, 1911 the eighteen-year-old Madeleine married the forty-seven year old John Jacob Astor in Beechwood, the Astor family's Newport, Rhode Island home.

Titanic

John Jacob Astor was one of the 1,500 people who died in the disaster, and his partially crushed body was recovered on April 22. Madeleine and the other survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia and afterwards Madeleine did not talk about the disaster except to mention her last memory of the sinking was seeing John Jacob Astor's pet Airedale, Kitty, pacing on the deck.

Post Titanic

Madeleine gave birth to John Jacob Astor VI, named after his father, on August 14, 1912. According to John Jacob Astor's will, Madeleine would have received income from a $5,000,000 trust fund as long as she did not remarry.

Remarriages

Madeleine's first remarriage was on June 22, 1916, in Bar Harbor, Maine. She married her childhood friend and banker William Karl Dick (1888-1953), who at twenty-eight years old was vice president of the Manufacturers Trust Company of New York and a part owner and director of the Brooklyn Times. As stated in the will, Madeleine lost her stipend from the trust fund and the right to live in the Astor mansion in Manhattan. During the marriage they had two sons: William Karl Dick, Jr. and John Henry Dick. The marriage to William Dick did not last and they divorced on July 21, 1933 in Reno, Nevada.

Just 4 months later on November 27, 1933 Madeleine married twenty-six-year-old Italian boxer Enzo Fiermonte in a civil ceremony in New York City. They divorced five years later on June 11, 1938 in West Palm Beach, Florida and Madeleine went back to using the surname Dick.

Death

Madeleine Force Astor Dick died of a serious heart ailment in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1940 at the age of forty-six. She was buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City.