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
Brooke Astor with her associate Billy Baldwin, decorated the Marshalls' apartment at 1 Gracie Square in New York City. In October 1953, 11 months after Charles Marshall's death, she married her third and final husband, William Vincent Astor (1891–1959), the chairman of the board of "Newsweek" magazine and the last notably rich American member of the famous Astor family. Vincent was the son of "RMS Titanic" victim John Jacob "Jack" Astor IV (1864–1912) and socialite Ava Lowle Willing (1868–1958), he had been married and divorced twice before, was childless, and was known to have a difficult personality. "He had a dreadful childhood,