Ada Brook Forte was an American socialite who lived in Gilded Age-era New York City.
Biography[]
Ada Brook was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a landowner and his New York-born wife of the Livingston family. She was the sister of Henry and Agnes Brook, as well as the aunt of Marian Brook and Oscar van Rhijn. Her brother squandered the family's fortune, and Ada remained unmarried for years after her courtship with Cornelius Eckhard was called off by her father. She moved into her sister's house on 61st Street in New York City in 1872 after the death of her brother-in-law. In 1883, she met the Episcopalian Reverend Luke Forte and married him, only for Forte to die a few months later. Ada inherited the family's profitable textile business and became the new matriarch of the extended Brook family.