Episode 91: Ties That Bind
Hoping that a change in political power will end the ongoing Great Depression, one heir vows his continuing and undying support to a presidential nominee.
#FDR, #FranklinDelanoRoosevelt, #VincentAstor, #presidentialelection1932, #CarolineAstor, #Nourmahal
A lifelong friendship develops between a young heir and his neighbor, a distant relative and a future president. Through personal tragedies and triumphs, Vincent Astor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt support each other to establish common goals to help the poor as well as have fun and playfulness.
Other people and subjects include: John Jacob Astor VI aka “Jakey,” Princess Ava Alice Muriel Astor Obolensky, Helen Dinsmore Astor, Caroline Astor, John Jacob Astor IV aka “Jack,” Lady Ava Lowle Willing Astor Ribblesdale, Madeleine Talmage Astor Force, Sara Delano Roosevelt, John Jacob Astor I, William Backhouse Astor, Sr., Laura Astor, William Backhouse Astor, Jr., Helen Schermerhorn Astor, President Theodore Roosvelt, Kermit Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Alice Roosevelt, James Roosevelt I, James Roosevelt Roosevelt aka “Rosey” Rosie Rosy, Tadd Roosevelt, Helen Roosevelt, George Roosevelt, FDR’s son James Roosevelt II, Warren Delano, Jr., Franklin Hughes Delano, Phillippe De Lannoy – Philip Delano, John Raskob, Dutchess County, Rhinebeck, Hyde Park, Ferncliffe, Springwood, Beechwood, Noma yacht, Nourmahal yacht, opium trade, snobbery, Knickerbockers, Mayflower passengers, Plymouth colonists, New York governor mansion, 1932 presidential race, New Deal reforms, Harvard, Columbia, law school, Titanic, polio, World War I, Lusitania, World War II, Assistant Secretary to the Navy, President Woodrow Wilson, President Herbert Hoover, Cuff Links Gang, Nourmahal Gang, King Edward VIII – Prince of Wales – Duke of Windsor, King George VI – Prince Albert – Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth – Queen Mum, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, Prince William, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, William Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, William Taft, Zachary Taylor, Martin Van Buren, George Washington, Betsey Cushing, Mary “Minnie” Cushing, Barbara “Babe” Cushing, Stanley Mortimer, Jr., William “Bill” Paley, presidential election 2024, friends, neighbors, family, kinship, step-sibling vs. half sibling
Archival Music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.
Extra Notes / Call to Action:
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Publish Date: August 06, 2023
Length: 26:31
Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 1 Music: Crazy Rhythm by Victor Silvester, Album The Great British Dance Bands
Section 2 Music: Eeny Meeny Miney Mo by Harry Roy, Albums The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s & Tea Dance 2
Section 3 Music: One Two, Button Your Shoe by Jack Hylton, Album The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s
End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands
AS THE MONEY BURNS
Podcast by Nicki Woodard
Episode 091 – Ties That Bind
Outline
Childhood friends, neighbors, and relatives
Presidential candidate
00:00
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast by Nicki Woodard. Based on historical research, this is a deep exploration into what happened to a set of actual heirs and heiresses to some of America’s most famous fortunes when the Great Depression hits.
Each episode has three primary sections. Section 1 is a narrative story. Section 2 goes deeper into the historical facts. Section 3 focuses on contemporary, emotional, and personal connections.
00:31
Story Recap
Newlywed Frank Shields wins hearts but loses at Wimbledon, while Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, and Jakey Astor dodge unwanted paramours during summer travels.
Now back to AS THE MONEY BURNS
Title
00:47
Ties That Bind
[Music Fade Out]
Episode Tag
Hoping that a change in political power will end the ongoing Great Depression, one heir vows his continuing and undying support to a presidential nominee.
01:02
[Music – Crazy Rhythm by Victor Silvester, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Section 1 – Story
[Music Fade Out]
01:19
On November 15th, 1892, an heir to a great fortune is born, one of both wealth and lineage as his grandmother is none other than the Gilded Age society queen Caroline Astor. Several weeks later, family members and neighbors gather to visit the newborn in New York’s Dutchess County, an area along the Hudson River including the enclaves of Hyde Park and Rhinebeck. On the large country estate Ferncliff, nearby Springwood neighbor Sara Delano Roosevelt visits *along with her young son Franklin, just shy of 10 years old.
01:55
Franklin’s older half-brother James Roosevelt Roosevelt also known as Rosey (Rosie, Rosy) is also the young heir’s uncle by marriage to Helen Schermerhorn Astor. The age difference between the half-brothers is so large that the younger Franklin is raised more like an only child by both doting parents. In fact, Rosey who is nearly 30 years older has 2 children a boy and girl that are older than their uncle by at least 2 – 3 years. Franklin holds the infant briefly as is tradition on such visits.
02:28
As the years go by, a teenage Franklin will unite with the young heir when they join Rosey’s family on holidays in the Adirondacks at St. Regis Lake. Franklin pays minor attention to the much younger Vincent. Both like sailing and dislike their mutual relative the more ostentatious and older Tadd Roosevelt, Rosey’s son, Franklin’s nephew, and Vincent’s cousin. At their mutual school Groton, Tadd teases Franklin, who has trouble adjusting but keeps that a secret as Franklin is more concerned as his elderly father’s growing heart troubles makes him more invalid. Despite wanting to stay closer to home and parents, the insistence is that Franklin heads off to Harvard in 1900.
03:10
At Harvard, Franklin blossoms into a social and charismatic young man. A few weeks into the semester, Franklin’s father James Roosevelt I dies. The estate is split between Rosey and Sara, with Franklin getting $120k dispersed at $5000 per year (in 2023 total $4.3 million with $181.6k yearly), not totally unsubstantial when the average worker like a barber earns $300 a year (about $10.9k today). In contrast, Tadd inherits from his Astor mother a fortune of $1.5 million in 1893 (the 2023 equivalent of $50.8 million).
Franklin focuses and follows into the family law business by going to Columbia. Upon passing the bar exam, Franklin quits law school and joins the family practice. He also grows fond of another cousin Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and marries her despite his mother’s protests. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt walks his orphaned niece Eleanor down the aisle. Theodore is Franklin’s hero.
04:24
Meanwhile, Vincent’s parents John Jacob Astor IV aka Jack and first wife Ava Lowle Willing Astor have had another child, a daughter Ava Alice Muriel Astor who is 10 years younger. The marriage is dreadful, with the mother pouring scorn on both husband and son. Both men socially and physically awkward to the more superior beauty and wit. The mother takes the daughter to London for much of the year, to Vincent and his father’s relief. After grandmother Caroline dies, the couple divorce. Vincent adores his father, and at times they get along, but at others Jack is a strict disciplinarian and harsh on his son and gives an extremely meager allowance. Still nothing as cutting or bad as his mother, who remains in London building a large social network.
05:18
Vincent matriculates first to St. Paul’s then St. Georges in Newport. Vincent too will end up at Harvard. At the Beechwood cottage in Newport, Vincent serves as best man to his father’s second marriage to Madeleine Talmadge, who is a few months younger than her stepson. The scandalous marriage both so shortly after a divorce and nearly 30 year age difference forces Jack to take his new bride on an extended honeymoon to Europe and Egypt. When Madeleine becomes pregnant, the couple promptly book a return passage aboard the Titanic. Vincent rushes to the White Star Line offices awaiting news of the tragedy. Alas, Jack is the richest man to die on the ill-fated trip, but Madeleine survives and gives birth to a son John Jacob Astor VI, aka Jakey, in August 1912.
06:09
Vincent becomes an heir to the vast Astor fortune at almost $67 million (over $2 billion in 2023). Their Uncle Rosey serves as executor, their sister the future Princess Obolensky will get $10 million (or $314.5 million in 2023), then unknown Jakey will receive $3 million ($94 million in 2023) – and to Jakey’s ire Vincent will be executor of his estate until reaching the majority age of 21. Franklin himself serves as lawyer and advisor to the Astor real estate holdings. Now as two young men where age is not as significant, Vincent and Franklin forge a lifelong friendship.
06:55
Vincent drops out of Harvard, immediately assuming control of the Astor properties. In the press, Vincent is referred as the boy millionaire, and he will be listed as number 12 on Forbes first richest list in 1918. Horrified that Astor wealth in real estate is primarily as slumlords, Vincent sets about rehabbing the family holdings. Selling off properties, reforming and constructing new buildings. He takes an empathetic approach to assisting the poor. Vincent will marry another childhood friend and Dutchess County resident Helen Dinsmore Astor, who will take over some of the role as society queen and even ends up getting Washington Post owner Edward “Ned” McLean (Hope Diamond owner Evalyn Walsh McLean’s wayward husband) ejected from the Newport crowd. Vincent’s mother will also remarry a British baron and becomes Lady Ribblesdale.
07:50
Meanwhile, Franklin harbors political ambitions and leaves law to join the state Senate in Albany and then gains appointment as Assistant Secretary to the Navy, a position his political idol Theodore once held. Franklin pushes for the modernization of the navy as well as joining World War II, but pacificist President Woodrow Wilson hesitates. But after the sinking of Lusitania, Wilson finally relents and puts Franklin in charge of maritime operations. Vincent volunteers the Astor family yacht Noma into service, first protecting the New York harbor then heads over to the coast off France to supervise shipping and mercantile safety.
08:30
After the war, Vincent focuses again on business, and Franklin dives into politics but fails in a bid for vice presidency in 1920. In thanks, the charismatic Franklin distributes special cufflinks to his supporters, after which they will gather every year on his birthday becoming the Cuff-Links Gang, and of course Vincent is a prized member. Only in 1921, Franklin contracts polio, and the illness ravages him for much of the 1920s. By 1928 with Vincent’s approval and financial support, a recovered Franklin makes a bid and wins the New York governor position. His performance allows him to rise to Democrat presidential nominee for 1932.
09:14
By now Vincent has done a very rare thing in later generations of wealth and eventually doubles the inherited family fortune. He will also do the unthinkable by using that same fortune to promote charity and improvement of the poor and to an extent rarely done among those born into his social set. He is considered a respected and successful businessman, though he remains forever socially awkward and shunned by much of the high society his grandmother once so thoroughly ruled. Sharing mutual political concerns over the government, Vincent once again contributes to Franklin’s political campaign and will serve as financial advisor and confidante to the future president.
09:57
On August 4th, 1932 on the front porch at the New York Governor’s mansion, Vincent lunches with Franklin, another banker-philanthropist-and distant cousin George Roosevelt, and the recent Democrat National Committee chairman John Raskob, the man who once declared everyone should be rich once in their life. Raskob and many others are concerned over Franklin’s proposed New Deal reforms, so much so that Raskob resigns as chairman upon the nomination and will later publicly oppose several of those reforms.
10:29
Vincent declares publicly and in print that Franklin is not an irresponsible radical and an enemy of every man but more conservative with a solid plan for improvement. Vincent further states,
“It has been my good fortune to know Franklin Roosevelt as a friend for many years and throughout that time I have learned increasingly his ability to lead and particularly to respect his broad, imaginative but true vision…”
The nation has grown tired of President Herbert Hoover’s failings and the obvious greed of his financial advisors who are more concerned with their pocketbooks than the public at large. Vincent claims that under the present circumstances the nation requires guidance by –
“Such a man in these times must possess vision and imagination as well as the other qualities essential to successful leadership. I believe that he can and will be found in Franklin Roosevelt.”
11:23
As the race heats up, Vincent remains devoted to Franklin, even offering him and making readily available another private Astor yacht the Nourmahal, both to recover from recurring polio and other ill health bouts as well as advisement. As president, FDR will accompany Vincent on at least 5 trips. They will form the Nourmahal Gang with its own daily newspaper during their voyages.
Both Franklin and Vincent’s seriousness over reform and finances counter with joviality and pranks. Their boyish playfulness offsetting how serious and powerful both have and will further become –
12:02
Vincent Astor, businessman and philanthropist
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR, reformer and the longest running president.
Vincent will remain devoted to his longtime friend, neighbor, and distant relative until FDR’s death. Loving ties that bind are the best fortunes.
12:28
[Music – Eeny Meeny Miney Mo by Harry Roy, Albums The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s & Tea Dance 2]
Section 2 – History & Historiography
[Music Fade Out]
12:43
Ohh, the ties of family and friends – some that bind and others that choke. And once again, it’s time to have fun with lots of familiar and similar names as we untangle the complicated webs of marriage, widowhood, divorce, and intermarriage, in what seems almost if not actual incestuous matches. Especially in families with money and power, there is a lot of intermingling and overlapping.
13:10
Vincent Astor and Franklin Roosevelt share multiple relations with some naturally closer than others. The closest connection between the two men is the marriage between Vincent’s paternal aunt Helen Astor and FDR’s older half-brother James “Rosey” Roosevelt, but Helen dies in 1893 while Vincent is a baby. Though Rosey remains close to Vincent’s father. Still Vincent has 2 cousins from the marriage, which would also be FDR’s nephew Tadd and niece Helen. All grow up in close proximity in an area known as Dutchess County with Astors in Rhinebeck and Roosevelts in Hyde Park, practically next door neighbors. So plenty of interaction accumulates over time.
13:57
Vincent Astor’s grandmother Caroline Astor was the Gilded Age society queen responsible for the creation of the 400 list which was used to determine who would be invited to her balls. Despite all of Caroline’s efforts, 3 of her 4 daughters made marital matches to those beneath her standards. A Roosevelt was not considered a high enough relation to Caroline’s long Dutch line Schermerhorn or Livingstons, then again neither were the Astors. The fact that her grandson Vincent became the opposite of his grandmother and would prefer to throw parties for the lower classes as well as develop properties and encourage laws to protect them would be far beyond Caroline’s scope of interest and likely have her turning in her grave. Snobbery always has such odd and overly forced delineations.
14:47
As for FDR, while he is a Roosevelt, his maternal line the Delanos are also considered highly connected though might not be as illustrious as the Knickerbocker elites comprising mostly of the wealthy Dutch colonialists, but the Delanos could claim some heritage of 7 Mayflower passengers and several Plymouth colonists, most importantly French immigrant Phillipe de Lannoy – later Anglicized as Philip Delano, arriving in 1621.
15:19
As well, the Delanos also provide links to more modern European royalty including King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth (we knew her as the Queen Mum, wife of the former stuttering Prince Albert Duke of York who took over after his brother King Edward VIII abdicated shortly before the second war broke out). FDR and King George VI are third cousins and allies in World War II. When the King and Queen visit Washington, D.C., in 1939 to raise U.S. support for the war, the royals head to Hyde Park and address each other as cousins. And yes, this also means that FDR is related to Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, Prince William, and the rest of the Windsor line.
16:08
Furthermore, Franklin Roosevelt is related to 11 other presidents, 5 by blood and 6 by marriage. These include John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, William Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, James Madison, William Taft, Zachary Taylor, Martin Van Buren, George Washington, and of course Theodore Roosevelt. For the latter, Franklin and Theodore were both 5th cousins by blood and also by marriage nephew and uncle respectively. Eleanor Roosevelt is Theodore Roosevelt’s niece by his brother, who had passed away when Eleanor was a child thus President Roosevelt gives the bride away at her wedding in 1905. *At the 1932 governor’s mansion luncheon, George Roosevelt is another first cousin once removed to Theodore Roosevelt.
16:58
FDR’s maternal grandfather Warren Delano, Jr., also made a substantial fortune in smuggling opium into China, back when it was illegal and yet somewhat considered a reputable trade? From that, Franklin will later inherit a much larger sum from his mother Sara Delano Roosevelt. Fur trader and America’s first millionaire John Jacob Astor I’s son William Backhouse Astor, Sr. will also be involved in the opium trade in the early 1800s, but both father and son will focus more on the real estate fortune in later years.
17:32
Through John Jacob Astor I’s favorite granddaughter and William Backhouse Astor, Sr.’s daughter, Laura Astor will be the earliest ancestor to marry a Delano – Franklin Hughes Delano, the granduncle and namesake for whom FDR is named. That couple had no children. However Laura’s brother William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and his wife Caroline Astor’s daughter Helen Schermerhorn Astor marries James Roosevelt Roosevelt, nicknamed Rosey (Rosie, Rosy), who is the older half-brother of FDR. Helen and Rosey have 2 children Tadd Roosevelt and Helen Roosevelt. Tadd likes to mischievously pull his cousin Alice Roosevelt’s pigtails – Alice being Theodore Roosevelt’s feisty eldest daughter.
18:20
The Roosevelt family is split politically between the Democrat side which FDR’s father aligned early on and the Republican side of Theodore Roosevelt. When FDR himself runs for political office, Theodore’s own children disavow their distant relation claiming they will never vote for him. It will be Vincent aboard his yacht Nourmahal which will help heal the rift and forge a bond between FDR and Theodore’s son Kermit Roosevelt, who previously joined Vincent on the earlier 1930 Galapagos expedition and will become a member of the Nourmahal Gang.
18:55
In the not so distant future but outside the scope of our story, FDR and Vincent will have a near miss at a partially closer relation via marriage. FDR’s favorite daughter-in-law is his son James Roosevelt’s first wife Betsey Cushing. Betsey’s oldest sister is Mary “Minnie” Cushing, Vincent’s future second wife. However the marriages are not in tandem, as Betsey and James divorce around the same time Vincent and Minnie get married. There are hints that Minnie may have become familiar to Vincent during the Nourmahal voyages. A third sister Barbara “Babe” Cushing will be the stylish wife of Stanley Mortimer, Jr., and then CBS executive William “Bill” Paley. The three socialite sisters all well noted for their beauty and fashion sense.
Ah yes, the power of the rich is to stay within the circle of others rich and powerful.
19:55
[Music – One Two, Button Your Shoe by Jack Hylton, Album The Great Dance Bands Play Hits of the 30s]
Section 3 – Contemporary & Personal Relevance
[Music Fade Out]
20:13
The intertwining nature of these tales often involve the concepts of friends and family. Sometimes loose connections and at others completely messy.
I know there is a lot of heat gaining over the anxiety of next year’s election process as we find ourselves in a similar point regarding the Great Depression. Years of hardship that seem unrelenting and trying to determine who can really help the nation improve. A quagmire of issues I prefer not to delve into, and with my historian eye I can see both positives and negatives in a way that infuriates anyone who has strong leanings for any one particular side.
20:51
However a bigger and longer dynamic in my opinion definitely involves the nature of families and relationships. Kinship is the original and largest tie that binds despite political upheavals. That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of turmoil and upheaval within a family – I’m just alluding the solution is not merely resolved by something as simple as an election. If you have had problematic familial relations, you definitely understand me better.
21:19
All of the primary stories I have developed for this series are definitely tied to my own personal parallel experiences. So of course, the nature of several family sibling relationships and dynamics are primary. My complex and complicated family with so many divorces and remarriages, means I grew up quickly able to discern and keep track of other families with similar complicated dynamics. In fact, friends often like to use my family to determine certain distinctions to then assess other situations. I’m the one they know who can keep things straight. Also my extensive cultural studies and personal friendships have also familiarized me with the concept of kinship in other cultures. As our story is based in the U.S., I am going to be speaking in relation to American dynamics which mostly comes with Western European origins and definitions.
22:13
Here is one of the core rubs – the concept between stepsiblings versus half-siblings. The default term people use is step, which is very common, but incorrect in certain situations. In one or two articles, they refer to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and James “Rosey” Roosevelt as stepbrothers, and Vincent Astor as FDR’s step-nephew. These are both incorrect. FDR and Rosie are half-brothers – they share a parent their father, that makes them blood relations. FDR is not Vincent’s uncle by blood nor by marriage. Vincent is by blood a relation to Rosey’s first wife Helen Astor, sister of Vincent’s father John Jacob Astor IV, aka Jack. In America, relations by marriage are only to the spouse and not the spouse’s other relations. However Rosey and Helen’s children are blood relatives to both Vincent and FDR. Even if FDR and Rosey had been full blooded brothers, the same is true. From that marriage, FDR and Vincent share blood relatives that are descendants. To be blood relations themselves, they need to have a common ancestor.
23:31
I am both a sibling with half-siblings through our mother, though we were raised in the same house, and the other fathers were not present in our lives. So I grew up with what feels like the same relationship as full siblings, the half only helps explaining the age difference, physical dissimilarities, and a few legalities. Which with recent deaths in the family, those legalities apply. My siblings also have other half-sisters, but as they were not present growing up those relations do feel different almost like a step or a distant cousin.
I can sympathize a little with the complications of siblings with significant age gaps and thereby raised separately further exacerbating and complicating familial ties. The battle between Vincent Astor and his younger half-brother John Jacob Astor VI still feels heartbreaking.
24:27
Because at the end of the day, my siblings have always been my siblings. The half has never mattered one bit to any of us. We love each other all the same. Having lost my one full blooded sibling much earlier in life, I don’t know what I would have done had I not had the other two. My life would have been far lonelier and confusing without them.
Then again, we never had a fortune to separate us.
Our heirs and heiresses can’t say the same thing. And all those little differences can quickly add up.
More familial disputes and occasional solidarity to follow…
25:09
Blood might be thicker than water, and it is far more precious than just family relations. Summer comes with a critically low shortage of blood for those who need it most. If you are eligible and able, please consider donating. Check out the Red Cross for local donation centers via redcrossblood.org or the Red Cross app is also available via Apple Store and Google Play.
If you enjoy As The Money Burns, then please share, like, & subscribe.
Hook
25:42
[Music – My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands]
Next when we return to AS THE MONEY BURNS…
Many feeling the economic pinch lower summer participation. But those who remain wealthy gather for another round of seaside fun.
Until then…
Credits
26:01
AS THE MONEY BURNS is an original podcast written, produced, and voiced by Nicki Woodard, based on historical research. Archival music has been provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, check out their website at www.pastperfect.com.
Please come visit us at As The Money Burns via Goodpods, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Transcripts, timeline, episode guide, and character bios are available at asthemoneyburns.com.
26:31
THE END.