Allene Tew

Allene Tew Hostetter Nichols Burchard Reuß zu Köstritz de Kotzebue (July 7, 1872 – May 1, 1955) was an American socialite during the Gilded Age who became a European aristocrat by marriage. Early life Allene Tew was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on July 7, 1872. Her father, Charles Henry Tew, was a banker in Jamestown, New York, and her mother was Janet (née Smith) Tew. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. As such, she had to provide documentation that she was a descendant of someone who fought in the American Revolutionary War. She may have doctored the evidence in order to encourage Mrs. Astor, the self-proclaimed queen of aristocratic American society at the turn of the century, to accept her as a member of the upper class despite her middle class upbringing, premarital pregnancy, and shotgun wedding. Personal life