Reason for the blog.

I am a writer. That is a pretty hard thing to have out there in print for everyone to see. Not a hesitant -- I think I am a writer or I want to be a writer, but plain and simple: I am a writer. As a writer, I have written several books -- most trash, some good, and just enough really good stuff that I want to hold it up and wave it around for everyone to see. But I won't. I promise.

But I digress...About 2 years ago, I was reading up on the Titanic prior to a museum visit and I got captivated by the story of the Astors, i.e. John Jacob Astor and Madeleine Force Astor. Her-- a young pregnant bride; him--an older, rich man. Both seeming in love, willing to defy the world--which made me want to find out who these people were. But every book gave me little information other than a handful of lines about how Col. Astor had divorced his wife, dared to marry a girl half his age, and then had the audacity to die on the Titanic, which promptly revitialized his reputation with the public. After that, nothing much would be said about his young widow except, mostly, how she had had a posthumous child that grew up to be a playboy like his father. I got to thinking how utterly sad Madeleine must have been to lose her husband of less than a year to the ocean. How in a moment everything changed for her. How did everything happen? What was the truth in all of it? Was Col. Astor a lothario who had a 'harem' in New York City who made passes at his friend's wives or was he the religious, patriotic soldier who had put his wife on a life boat, stepped back and helped other women to board as well. Was Madeleine a gold-digger pushed into a loveless marriage by her mother or was she the loving, young wife who morned for her husband for the rest of her life?....I wanted to KNOW! And since I am a writer, I wanted to write about it. To write, meant research and more research. After a lot of digging, I realized there was still more out there about both of them that nobody had ever seemed bothered to look over. Books usually had a scant chapter on Col. Astor, and those usually referring back to the same few sources. What I found in the Newspapers didn't agree with what I read in those short chapters. Sometimes, they were wrong.

Being the obcessive that I am, I turned to the Internet and found Newspaper Archives, which I haven't finished yet. Two years doing this, looking and checking and checking some more and I still haven't yet gotten all the informtion printed out, to get to the place where I can organize it, to actually write a fiction and a non-fiction book. In the mean-time, I have collected over a thousand period photographs, artifacts, and I still haven't found everything I want to find. Two years, I been doing this. At least two hours a day, sometime more.

My family accepts my obcession now, and while my husband teases me by calling me the 'Astor Channel' since sometimes its 'All Astor, all the time.', he has been supportive.

Whew! All that, to get to the reason for the blog. I wanted somewhere to chronicle my search and to perhaps, if I am very lucky, to share with other Astorphiles out there the information that I have found. (Or maybe, just to get *them* to share with me!)

I plan to go to California, Florida, South Carolina, Washington, then New York and Maine to finish the research up. I will have the money to do so in a year in the spring. *Cross my fingers.* I also plan a Titanic cruise in 2012, to retrace that last journey of the Titanic ..already a cruise line plans to offer this and I imagine they will not be alone. I hope to finish this all in another year or two. The research, the books, all of it. Then, done, put it down for something else.
I hope.

You know that quote don't you? To make God laugh, tell him your plan...