Madeline Astor’s Honeymoon
Madeline Astor, a newlywed on the Titanic, boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France, for a return trip back into New York society. Astor, in his late forties and divorced from his first wife, fell for the beautiful young socialite when she was just eighteen years old. They married in September of 1911. The couple were returning from their Egyptian and Parisian honeymoon on Titanic. John Jacob Astor was killed in the sinking, but the five-months pregnant Madeline survived in lifeboat four. Upon her return to New York, doctors put Madeline on bed rest, as the tragedy took a toll on her nerves. Even so, she delivered a healthy baby boy in August 1912. She named him John Jacob Asotr VI after his father. Astor’s will provided for his wife and son financially and gave them his house on New York’s fashionable Fifth Avenue – as long as she never remarried.