John Jacob Astor IV Alida Rebecca Armstrong, Astor was also a great-grandson of Senator John Armstrong, Jr. and Alida Livingston of the Livingston family. His maternal grandparents were Abraham Schermerhorn, a wealthy merchant, and socialite Helen Van Courtlandt White. He was also a nephew of financier and philanthropist John Jacob Astor III, and grandnephew of occasional poet John Jacob Astor, Jr. His sister Helen's husband was diplomat James Roosevelt "Rosey" Roosevelt, half-brother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Roosevelt family. Another sister, Carrie, a noted philanthropist, was the wife of Marshall Orme Wilson (brother of banker Richard Thornton Wilson, Jr. and socialite Grace
Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor tea," to which he responded, "Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it." The retort has been documented as being by Churchill's friend F. E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead. Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH (19 May 18792 May 1964) was the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat. She was an American citizen who moved to England at age 26. She made a second marriage to Waldorf Astor as a young woman in England. After he succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics, in 1919 winning