The chapter about Alva Vanderbilt tell us about the complicated relationship with her husband, who had affairs with other women on his yacht.
Alva had three children, Consuelo, William Kissam and Harold Stirling, and she overprotected Consuelo.
The Vanderbilts took a cruise on Willie K's new yacht, and during the cruise Alva and Willie decided that their marriage was over. In 1895 Alva scandalized society by divorcing William Kissam Vanderbilt on the grounds of adultery.
The woman Willie K had started seeing and was the cause for the divorce was Nellie Neustretter.
Alva wanted Consuelo to marry the Duke of Marlbourough, but during the cruise she fell in love with Winthrop Rutherfurd. Winthrop Chanler Rutherfurd (February 4, 1862 – March 19, 1944) was an American socialite from New York.
Alva took Consuelo to Europe and then kept her a prisoner in their house in Newport, Marble House.
Cornelius Vanderbilt II had The Breakers built in Newston.
When Consuelo and the Duke of Marlborough met, they did not think much of each other. Yet, Alva was adamnt that they should marry and she stopped all communication between Consuelo and Winthrop. Consuelo eventually married the Duke in 1885.
Alva Vanderbilt married Oliver Belmont in 1896. Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (November 12, 1858 – June 10, 1908) was an American banker, socialite, and politician who served one term as a United States Representative from New York from 1901 to 1903. He had been a friend of the Vanderbilts since the late 1880s, having accompanied them on at least two long voyages aboard their yacht the Alva. According to scholars, it seemed obvious that he and Alva were attracted to one another upon their return from one such voyage in 1889.
The next chapter is about the Wilson family. The partriarch of the family was Richard Wilson, a Southerner, who settled down in New York after the Civil Warl. Richard Thornton Wilson (c. 1829 – November 26, 1910) was a multimillionaire American investment banker known for being the father of five children who all married into prominent families during the Gilded Age of New York.
His oldest daughter married Ogden Goelet. Mary Rita Goelet (née Wilson; December 12, 1855 – February 23, 1929), known as May Goelet, was an American socialite and member of a family known as "the marrying Wilsons".
Their daughter, May Ogden, who inherited a fortune when her father died, had many suitors after her money, but she knew she wanted what her mother and some of her aunts had with their husbands, and she eventually marry the Duke of Roxburghe.
Orme Wilson married Caroline Schermerhorm Astor. Marshall Orme Wilson (June 20, 1860 – April 1, 1926) was an American banker and prominent member of New York Society during the Gilded Age.
Grace Wilson (September 3, 1870 – January 7, 1953) married Neily Vanderbilt, but the marriage was not accepted by the Vanderbilts. Grace eloped with Cornelius "Neily" Vanderbilt III (1873–1942), son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Claypoole Gwynne of the Vanderbilt family, in 1896. This led to a violent disagreement between Neily and his father, which lasted many years.
And Belle Wilson (1864 - 1923) married Michael (Mungo) Herbert (25 June 1857 – 30 September 1903).
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