Brooke Astor
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Brooke Astor (born March 30, 1902)Template:Ref was born Roberta Brooke Russell in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of John Henry Russell, Jr., a Marine Corps officer, and his wife, née Mabel Cecile Hornby Howard.
Her father, who retired as a major general, ended his military career as 16th commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.
After a childhood spent in China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and points beyond, Brooke Russell married three times, the first time at age 17, in 1919 ([[1]]), to J. Dryden Kuser.
She described this marriage as "the worst years of her life", with her husband physically abusing her, drinking to excess and philandering. Their (and her) only child, Anthony Dryden Kuser (b. 1924), was later adopted by her second husband, a stockbroker, Charles Marshall (and brother-in-law of the mercantile heir Marshall Field III) whom she married in 1932, as Anthony Dryden Marshall. Charles Marshall died in 1952.
Brooke Astor's son would serve as U.S. ambassador to Malagasy Republic, Kenya, Trinidad and Tobago, and Seychelles.
At various times in before, during and after World War II, she worked as an editor at House & Garden magazine and was on staff at Ruby Ross Wood Inc., a prominent New York decorating firm.
She achieved particular social prominence through her third marriage. In 1953, a year after Charles Marshall's death, she married her third and final husband, Vincent Astor (1891-1959), the last notably wealthy American member of the famous Astor family and elder son of Titanic victim Colonel John Jacob Astor IV (1864-1912).
Upon Vincent Astor's death in 1959, she took charge of the philanthropies to which he left his fortune. Despite liquidating the Vincent Astor Foundation in 1997, she continues to be active in charities and in New York's social life. The New York Public Library was always one of Astor's favorite charities. As a result of her charity work, Astor was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in 1998.
She is the author of several books, including novels and a memoir, A Patchwork Child.
Roberta Russell Kuser was good friends with Clare Booth Luce and they would often go out together in scintillating 1920s New York City, where they both came of age. The now-Mrs. Astor recalls that Luce, a year younger than she, had different tastes in men so it "worked out fine".
Footnotes
- Template:Note Some sources indicate March 31, 1902.de:Brooke Astor