You Love either Right or Wrong

Good Greetings to All,

What a strange title – but it describes a famous love between John Jacob Astor and Madelaine Talmadge Force. Upon the reading the book entitled: The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abe, it is by far a very enlightening picture of their very brief married life together. 

John Jacob Astor was so very well-known in the Gilded Age. Inventor, writer, banker, business entrepreneur, a hero of the Spanish-American War….only to loose his life in the famous ocean ship disaster Titanic.  He lived a very full life but had sorrow as well. His divorce from Ava was a scandal as seen among the grand “Four Hundred”. Then he falls in love with a lovely girl Madelaine (Maddy) Force 29 years his junior. And she (Maddy) thought only of how good a man he was – not his age. The book is a wonderful book for a book club.  It describes the unbearable pressman hunting down Madelaine for any type of interview, or comments about their lives together. Maddy was looked upon as a “gold-digger”.  So happy are they when they embark upon a honeymoon to Egypt and then to return home with the delight of a new baby – only to be held by Madelaine, not John. With the disaster of the Titanic, Madelaine was suddenly transformed into a tragic heroine. 

Through all of their shunning and licentious talk, they never left each other side.  This book is a very good book on the history of the Astor Family. Two other companion books which I recommend are by Anderson Cooper – one on Vanderbilt and the other about the Astor Family. For myself, I feel the Gilded Age was a very dynamic period for the building of the way in which we live now. It was comprehensive.

All the best…..more to come!

Patti