Mrs Madeleine Astor (Madeleine Force), 18, was the wife of millionaire John Jacob Astor, they had been on an extended honeymoon in Egypt and Paris and, in the spring of 1912, decided to return to America from Cherbourg as First Class passengers on board the brand new Titanic. After the accident Colonel Astor left his suite to investigate, he quickly returned and reported to Madeleine that the ship had struck ice. He reassured her that the damage did not appear serious. Later they waited on the boat deck from where she boarded lifeboat 4 aided by her husband and Second Officer Charles Lightoller.
Madeleine inherited from her husband the income from a five-million-dollar trust fund and the use of his home on Fifth Avenue and in the Newport so long as she did not marry. In August 1912, she gave birth to a son with whom she was pregnant on the Titanic, and she named him after her husband, John Jacob Astor. During World War one She married William K. Dick and relinquished all claim to the Astor fortune. They divorced in 1933 in Reno, Nevada. After their divorce Madeleine married prize-fighter Enzo Fiermonte but they too divorced in 1938 and she took back the surname Dick. She died in Palm Beach, Florida in 1940 at the age of 47.