Grace Graham Wilson Vanderbilt was bornon September 3, 1870, in New York City. She was the daughter of Richard Thornton Wilson, a cotton speculator who became a banker, and Melissa Clementine Johnson Wilson.
The Wilsons' social position was greatly enhanced by the matches made by their three oldest children: Mary Reta (May) married Ogden Goelet, whose social set included the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII); Marshall Orme married Carolina Schermerhorn Astor, daughter of the leader of New York's Four Hundred, who made Grace her protege; and Lelia (Belle) married the Honorable Michael Henry Herbert, a British diplomat.
Education
Fluent in French and German, beautiful blonde Grace Wilson was privately educated.
Career
Having moved in the circle surrounding Kaiser Wilhelm II, she adroitly maneuvered to be the only one to entertain his brother, Prince Heinrich Albert Wilhelm, at a private dinner in New York in 1902. That summer she brought the cast of the New York musical comedy Wild Rose to a temporary theater she had had built at Beaulieu.
Combining this attraction with a midway, she managed to "outshine anything ever attempted at Newport, " according to the New York Times. The affair went down in Newport history as the Fate des Roses because of the lavish use of that flower, including the American Beauty, her favorite. The completion of her husband's yacht North Star (1903) provided a third base of operation. She entertained most of the crowned heads of Europe, earning the derisive title "Kingfisher, " and also several presidents of the United States.
One of Mrs. Vanderbilt's many charities was that of raising funds for needy families of members of the National Guard serving on the Mexican border in 1916, where her husband was on active duty. During World War I she helped raise large sums for Belgian relief and was decorated by the Belgian government. The Salvation Army and the distressed of New York City during the Great Depression also profited from her endeavors, as did the United Service Organization Fund during World War II, the United Nations, and the Metropolitan Opera Association.
After William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt reconciled their differences at her table, she developed an exaggerated idea of herself as a peacemaker. In July 1939, she went to Europe with Sara Delano Roosevelt, hoping to avert war through discussions over tea with Queen Mary, an old friend. An earlier disappointment came when the election of Woodrow Wilson frustrated her ambition to see her Republican husband named to a diplomatic post.
Grace died eleven years later in New York, having seen razed the landmark Vanderbilt mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue.
Achievements
Grace Vanderbilt was one of the last Vanderbilts to live the luxurious life of the "head of society" that her predecessors such as Alice and Alva Vanderbilt enjoyed.
Personality
Grace's life early assumed its permanent pattern: winter in New York for the opera (of which she was fond), early spring in Paris to buy her summer wardrobe, followed by visits to the Goelets' villa on the Riviera, to Bad Nauheim for the cure, to London for the social season, to Scotland for grouse hunting, to Paris for winter clothes, and to the Homestead at Hot Springs, W. Va. , for a six-week cure. The Newport summer season became a fixed part of her life. There she took a "cottage" next door to Mrs. Astor, named it Beaulieu, and furnished it strikingly with French antiques.
His parents obdurately opposed the choice of their studious son, who abhorred the limelight she was always to crave. After his father's death in 1899, Cornelius III found that his share of his father's $52 million estate was only $1. 5 million. Grace Vanderbilt soon embarked upon a campaign to win social preeminence, and, with a flair for intrigue, she eventually succeeded Mrs. Astor as arbiter of New York society, which she ruled from her famous Fifth Avenue mansion. She was aided by her imagination, her sense of strategy, forcefulness, patience for detail, and talent for ingratiation when she chose to use it.
She lived by a rigid social code, entertained magnificently, and reared her children as though they were royalty. Her diamonds and emeralds were famous even during an age of unabashed display, and she was once photographed wearing over a million dollars' worth of diamonds alone. Her "headache bands, " which she had made in Paris to match her gowns, became a trademark. She rode (sidesaddle), neither drank nor smoked, and pampered a long succession of miniature pinschers. She signified her separateness from the rest of the Vanderbilts, who had contributed heavily to the building of St. Bartholomew's, by attending St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.
Disapproving of college education for girls, she disliked women who worked for causes. Her penchant for helping others (sometimes found irritating) included arranging acquaintanceships, better jobs, and suitable marriages. More disturbing were the elopement of her daughter Grace with an engineer, Henry Gassaway Davis III (she later married Robert Livingston Stevens), and her son Cornelius' becoming a journalist. Her engineer husband had spent an increasingly large part of his life on his yacht, where he died in 1942.
Connections
Grace had been engaged to a son of Lord Revelstoke before marrying Vanderbilt, three years her junior and an heir to the New York Central Railroad fortune. Grace married Cornelius Vanderbilt III on August 3, 1896.
Father:
Richard Thornton Wilson
1829 - 26 November 1910
Mother:
Melissa Clementine Johnston Wilson
9 May 1831 - 30 May 1908
niece:
Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe
October 6, 1878 – April 26, 1937
Was an American-British socialite and heiress.
Brother:
Richard Thornton Wilson, Jr
11 September 1866 - 29 December 1929
Brother:
William Johnston Wilson
30 September 1853 - 13 June 1854
Brother:
Marshall Orme “Orme” Wilson, Sr
20 June 1860 - 1 April 1926
Sister:
Mary Rita “May” Wilson Goelet
4 December 1855 - 23 February 1929
Sister:
Leila Belle Wilson Herbert
28 January 1864 - 19 November 1923
Sister:
Ada Clementine Wilson
22 February 1859 - 14 July 1862
Sister:
Hannah Retta Wilson
13 July 1856 - 14 September 1857
Daughter:
Grace Vanderbilt Stevens
25 September 1899 - 28 January 1964
Son:
Cornelius Vanderbilt IV
April 30, 1898 – July 7, 1974
Was a newspaper publisher, journalist, author and military officer.
husband:
Cornelius "Neily" Vanderbilt III
September 5, 1873 – March 1, 1942
Was an American military officer, inventor, engineer, and yachtsman. He was a member of the Vanderbilt family.
