| 1906. MARY BENEDICT (MINNIE) CUSHING |
| Sex: F
Birth: 27 Jan 1906 in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland Death: 4 Nov 1978 in Manhattan, New York, New York
Minnie Cushing was the eldest of three daughters of America's premier neurosurgeon, Dr. Harvey Cushing. Betsey, the middle child, married Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's oldest son James in 1931. It was through that connection that Minnie met Vincent.
After his divorce from Helen Dinsmore Huntington, Vincent almost immediately married Mary Benedict Cushing, known as Minnie, who had been his mistress for several years. Minnie was long and bony and slender like her husband. She was not pretty, in contrast to her youngest sister Barbara, known as Babe, who first married Stanley Mortimer and then William Paley. The relationship between Minnie and Vincent was a puzzlement to many. She was charming and outgoing and loved New York life which included society, the arts, culture and its access to its European counterparts. Minnie hated the big house in Rhinebeck that Vincent loved and which his grandfather had built, so at her insistence, he had it torn down and they moved into the very large tennis house/gymnasium/guest house on the property that Stanford White designed and styled after the Grand Trianon at Versailles for Ava Astor in 1903. Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, Minnie got Vincent to create living spaces with cheap rents for artists, and he did. Vincent didn't have much of a sense of humor although he loved practical jokes. Serving hotdogs on a role, he'd slip a metal facsimile onto someone's roll so when they bit into it, they might even chip a tooth. Vincent Astor thought that, was hilarious. As far the marriage between Vincent and Minnie went, they were both, as one of Alice Astor's husbands, David Pleydell Bouverie once recounted: "low voltage sexually." Which is how it seemed to outsiders. It was difficult to figure. No one ever regarded Minnie Cushing a fortune hunter (although all three sisters were famous for marrying very rich men). However, the Astor money was the only rational and credible reason for her to be with him, first as mistress and later as wife. Vincent was, like his father; he was nerdy. Nerdy and Vincent Astor. Although despite his autocratic behavior among toward hoi polloi, he was charitable and his sense of charity would grow with time, delivering him to a place of honor many of his detractors would never achieve. Or even bother to try.
Vincent Astor was very upset. Minnie suggested and he agreed that she first find a "replacement" for him. In other words, the divorcing wife finds a new wife for her departing husband. The two of them went to work. Vincent thought of Janet Stewart, the widow his closest childhood/lifetime friend, William Rhinelander Stewart. Janet Stewart was considered the most beautiful woman in New York and was known for her late afternoon cocktail salons where guests were permitted to stop by uninvited for drinks and conversation. She was also a charter member of the Best Dressed List while quite happy to tell anyone who wanted to hear that the dress she was wearing at any given time might have cost $4.98. So when Vincent Astor, this hulk of a man, still adolescent in many ways, this Croesus of Manhattan with protruding (and occasionally drooling) lower lip; told Janet Stewart that Minnie was leaving him, and he asked would she, Janet, like to marry him, Janet Stewart responded with characteristic directness: "Marry you? I don't even like you. Why would I marry you?" Undaunted, he gave her a reason: "Well, I'm not all that well, and I may not live long and there would be all the Astor money." Stewart then pointed out that she had enough of her own money to live comfortably anyway, adding, "And what if you did live?" The story of the meeting of Janet Stewart and Vincent Astor was passed around for years afterwards, always with a laugh at the punch line, with never with a thought of what it must have felt to be Vincent Astor at that moment. That may be because everyone believed Vincent Astor didn't know any better.
After the drop-off that night, Minnie hatched an idea with Vincent: What about Brooke Marshall as a wife?
1910 US Census: Baltimore Ward 11, Baltimore (Independent City), Maryland
1920 US Census: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts
1930 US Census: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts
Father:
Marriage 1: William Vincent Astor, Captain b: Nov 1891 in New York City, New York d: 3 Feb 1959 in New York City, New York
Marriage 2: James Whitney Fosburgh b: 1 Aug 1910 in New York, New York; d: 23 Apr 1978 in New York, New York
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