Woodlawn Cemetery

Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Birth: Jan. 17, 1853 Death: Jan. 26, 1933 Suffragette. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, she was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and plantation owner. Her parents were ruined at the outbreak of the Civil War and fled to Paris, France with their five children. When they returned to the United States after the war, her mother ran a New York City, New York boarding house and her father brokered cotton to support their family in genteel poverty. Her best friend from her childhood in Mobile, Consuelo Yznaga (later Viscountess Mandeville), introduced her to handsome, wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva determined to marry him, which she did in 1875. They were of opposite temperaments and the marriage was unhappy. Alva had three children, Consuelo, William II, and Harold Vanderbilt. Fiery-tempered and ferociously ambitious, she forced her daughter Consuelo to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, for which the impoverished duke received more than $2.5 million (an astronomical sum in 1895). Although the marriage made Consuelo miserable, she and her mother reconciled later and Consuelo was at her mother's bedside when she died at her Parisian townhouse and escorted her mother's body home for burial. Alva divorced Vanderbilt and married Oliver H. P. Belmont in 1896. Belmont, whose father had founded an international banking fortune, had been her husband's best friend. After her second husband's death, Alva embraced the Suffragist movement, donating both funds and leadership. An amazingly profligate spender, she constructed and fantastically decorated more than a dozen grand residences, the most famous of which may be Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island (which she sold in 1932 for the Depression-era price of $100,000, less than one-hundredth of the $11 million it had cost in 1892). Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3711

Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Birth: Jan. 17, 1853 Death: Jan. 26, 1933 Suffragette. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, she was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and plantation owner. Her parents were ruined at the outbreak of the Civil War and fled to Paris, France with their five children. When they returned to the United States after the war, her mother ran a New York City, New York boarding house and her father brokered cotton to support their family in genteel poverty. Her best friend from her childhood in Mobile, Consuelo Yznaga (later Viscountess Mandeville), introduced her to handsome, wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva determined to marry him, which she did in 1875. They were of opposite temperaments and the marriage was unhappy. Alva had three children, Consuelo, William II, and Harold Vanderbilt. Fiery-tempered and ferociously ambitious, she forced her daughter Consuelo to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, for which the impoverished duke received more than $2.5 million (an astronomical sum in 1895). Although the marriage made Consuelo miserable, she and her mother reconciled later and Consuelo was at her mother's bedside when she died at her Parisian townhouse and escorted her mother's body home for burial. Alva divorced Vanderbilt and married Oliver H. P. Belmont in 1896. Belmont, whose father had founded an international banking fortune, had been her husband's best friend. After her second husband's death, Alva embraced the Suffragist movement, donating both funds and leadership. An amazingly profligate spender, she constructed and fantastically decorated more than a dozen grand residences, the most famous of which may be Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island (which she sold in 1932 for the Depression-era price of $100,000, less than one-hundredth of the $11 million it had cost in 1892). Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3711

Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Birth: Jan. 17, 1853 Death: Jan. 26, 1933 Suffragette. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, she was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and plantation owner. Her parents were ruined at the outbreak of the Civil War and fled to Paris, France with their five children. When they returned to the United States after the war, her mother ran a New York City, New York boarding house and her father brokered cotton to support their family in genteel poverty. Her best friend from her childhood in Mobile, Consuelo Yznaga (later Viscountess Mandeville), introduced her to handsome, wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva determined to marry him, which she did in 1875. They were of opposite temperaments and the marriage was unhappy. Alva had three children, Consuelo, William II, and Harold Vanderbilt. Fiery-tempered and ferociously ambitious, she forced her daughter Consuelo to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, for which the impoverished duke received more than $2.5 million (an astronomical sum in 1895). Although the marriage made Consuelo miserable, she and her mother reconciled later and Consuelo was at her mother's bedside when she died at her Parisian townhouse and escorted her mother's body home for burial. Alva divorced Vanderbilt and married Oliver H. P. Belmont in 1896. Belmont, whose father had founded an international banking fortune, had been her husband's best friend. After her second husband's death, Alva embraced the Suffragist movement, donating both funds and leadership. An amazingly profligate spender, she constructed and fantastically decorated more than a dozen grand residences, the most famous of which may be Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island (which she sold in 1932 for the Depression-era price of $100,000, less than one-hundredth of the $11 million it had cost in 1892). Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3711

Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Birth: Jan. 17, 1853 Death: Jan. 26, 1933 Suffragette. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, she was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and plantation owner. Her parents were ruined at the outbreak of the Civil War and fled to Paris, France with their five children. When they returned to the United States after the war, her mother ran a New York City, New York boarding house and her father brokered cotton to support their family in genteel poverty. Her best friend from her childhood in Mobile, Consuelo Yznaga (later Viscountess Mandeville), introduced her to handsome, wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva determined to marry him, which she did in 1875. They were of opposite temperaments and the marriage was unhappy. Alva had three children, Consuelo, William II, and Harold Vanderbilt. Fiery-tempered and ferociously ambitious, she forced her daughter Consuelo to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, for which the impoverished duke received more than $2.5 million (an astronomical sum in 1895). Although the marriage made Consuelo miserable, she and her mother reconciled later and Consuelo was at her mother's bedside when she died at her Parisian townhouse and escorted her mother's body home for burial. Alva divorced Vanderbilt and married Oliver H. P. Belmont in 1896. Belmont, whose father had founded an international banking fortune, had been her husband's best friend. After her second husband's death, Alva embraced the Suffragist movement, donating both funds and leadership. An amazingly profligate spender, she constructed and fantastically decorated more than a dozen grand residences, the most famous of which may be Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island (which she sold in 1932 for the Depression-era price of $100,000, less than one-hundredth of the $11 million it had cost in 1892). Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3711

Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont Birth: Jan. 17, 1853 Death: Jan. 26, 1933 Suffragette. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, she was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and plantation owner. Her parents were ruined at the outbreak of the Civil War and fled to Paris, France with their five children. When they returned to the United States after the war, her mother ran a New York City, New York boarding house and her father brokered cotton to support their family in genteel poverty. Her best friend from her childhood in Mobile, Consuelo Yznaga (later Viscountess Mandeville), introduced her to handsome, wealthy William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva determined to marry him, which she did in 1875. They were of opposite temperaments and the marriage was unhappy. Alva had three children, Consuelo, William II, and Harold Vanderbilt. Fiery-tempered and ferociously ambitious, she forced her daughter Consuelo to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, for which the impoverished duke received more than $2.5 million (an astronomical sum in 1895). Although the marriage made Consuelo miserable, she and her mother reconciled later and Consuelo was at her mother's bedside when she died at her Parisian townhouse and escorted her mother's body home for burial. Alva divorced Vanderbilt and married Oliver H. P. Belmont in 1896. Belmont, whose father had founded an international banking fortune, had been her husband's best friend. After her second husband's death, Alva embraced the Suffragist movement, donating both funds and leadership. An amazingly profligate spender, she constructed and fantastically decorated more than a dozen grand residences, the most famous of which may be Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island (which she sold in 1932 for the Depression-era price of $100,000, less than one-hundredth of the $11 million it had cost in 1892). Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3711

Isidor Straus Birth: Feb. 6, 1845 Death: Apr. 15, 1912 US Congressman, Macy's Department Store Owner and merchant. However, he is best remembered for his dignified manner of death aboard the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Born in Otterberg, Germany, of a cultivated family, his father, a successful merchant suffered from political repression and emigrated with the family in 1852, setting up a general store in Talbotton, Georgia. Young Isidor was educated in local public schools, and during the Civil War, he was sent to Europe to purchase blockade running ships to bring merchant goods through the Union blockade to the south. When the plan was abandoned, Straus was left stranded in London, England, with $1,200. Working diligently on the London stock exchange, he soon turned that money into $12,000, returning home after the war to set up a business with his father, importing English crockery. The merchant firm of L. Straus and Son did very well, and it 1874, they worked a deal with the R. H. Macy's company to sell their crockery in Macy's basement. With his brother Nathan, Isidor soon became partners in Macy's and in 1896, they became the sole owners of Macy's, taking over the company. Isidor would organize and run the store, while his brother Nathan would be the "idea man." The two brothers expanded the store into a nationwide chain, soon to become the largest department store in the world. While the Straus family would diversify their financial interests, the Macy's Department Store would remain their principal financial resource. Straus served in Congress from 1893 to 1895, but fell out of favor with the Democratic party over the issue of Free Silver. When the RMS Titanic sailed from England, he was returning from a vacation with his wife. After striking an iceberg, the crew began loading the women into lifeboats, refusing to let the men join their families. Mrs. Rosalie Straus refused to leave her husband on the sinking ship, and told him, "We have been together for many years. Where you go, I go;" this comment was overheard by several surviving witnesses. They were last seen together on the deck of the ship. After the sinking, the body of Isidor Straus was recovered by the British cargo ship "Mackay-Bennett," chartered by the White Star Line for the purpose of recovering as many of the dead as possible. Mrs Straus's body was never found. Isidor was buried in the Beth-el Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson) Cause of death: Titanic sinking Burial: Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx Bronx County New York, USA Plot: F-4 Myosotis Text from: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3678 and Ida Straus Original name: Rosalie Ida Blun Birth: 1849 Death: Apr. 15, 1912 Wife of Isidor Straus, US Congressman, and Macy's Department Store Owner. She is best remembered for her dignified manner of death aboard the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Born Rosalie Ida Blun, she married Isidor Straus in 1871, and the two were inseperable, writing to each other every day when they were apart. When the RMS Titanic sailed from England, the couple was returning from a vacation. After striking an iceberg, the crew began loading the women and children into lifeboats, refusing to let the men join their families. Mrs. Rosalie Straus refused to leave her husband on the sinking ship, and told him, "We have been together for many years. Where you go, I go;" this comment was overheard by several surviving witnesses. They were last seen together on the deck of the ship. After the sinking, the body of Isidor Straus was recovered by the British cargo ship "Mackay-Bennett," chartered by the White Star Line for the purpose of recovering as many of the dead as possible. Mrs Straus's body was never found. Isidor was buried in the Beth-el Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York; the grave is also