Cornelia Van Hofwegen
Addressed As
Overgrootmoeder / Great Grandmother / Anouska
Appearance
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An elderly woman of fragile appearance bound to a wheelchair and clothed in the finest Victorian garb and drenched in antique jewelry.
Background
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Cornelia Van Hofwegen was born in 1832. The youngest of several children born to the shipping tycoon Wendel Van Hofwegen and his wife Ambrosine Astor-Van Hofwegen. Despite her youth and sex Anouska rose to dominate her family's shipping empire after her father's death.
At surprisingly young age she made herself the center of not only her family, but of New York society when she moved from the ancestral home in New Canaan, Connecticut to uptown Manhattan at the Madison and Park Avenue districts. As a beautiful young heir to an immense old fortune, Anouska was the belle of the ball throughout her twenties, when she began to slide towards spinsterhood she ably selected from among her suitors for a malleable man who would stand by her side, but not in her way.
Over the next five decades Anouska produced numerous heirs who in turn dutifully created grandchildren for their Overgrootmoeder. And so the clan has grown, unfortunately Cornelia has had difficulty in selecting a new leader for her family as so few show true capability. Those few she sees potential within become her close companions at the Hotel Ambassador.
Although Cornelia admits that the Hotel Ambassador was not built specifically for her, she was a significant and original investor, and that she has the seventh floor as her exclusive abode says much to the blue blooded society scions who come to her exclusive gatherings.
Personality
Anouska is the matriarch of her family. She is the proverbial iron fist in the velvet glove and has held the reins of power in the Van Hofwegen clan for over seventy years. In business and family affairs alike she makes it clear that whether family or employee those who seek to advance must kiss the ring and through artful application of debt and inheritance she keeps both her businesses and family in line.
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