Princess Ileana of Romania
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| Princess Ileana of Romania | |
 Princess Ileana of Romania
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| Born | January 5, 1909 Bucharest, Romania |
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| Died | January 21, 1991 (aged 82) Youngstown, Ohio, USA |
| Occupation | Royalty |
| Spouse | Archduke Anton of Austria-Tuscany Dr. Stefan Issarescu |
| Children | Archduke Stefan, Archduchess Maria Ileana, Archduchess Alexandra, Archduke Dominic, Archduchess Maria Magdalena, Archduchess Elisabeth |
| Parents | Ferdinand I of Romania and Marie of Edinburgh |
Princess Ileana of Romania (5 January 1909 - 21 January 1991) was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand I of Romania, King of the Romanians, and his consort Queen Marie of Romania.
Ileana was the organizer and Chief of the Romanian Guides Movement, the Girl Reserves of the Red Cross, and the first school of Social Work in Romania. She was an avid sailor: she earned her navigator's papers, and owned and sailed the "Isprava" for many years.
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[edit] Before King Michael's abdication
On July 26, 1931, Ileana married the Archduke Anton of Austria. This marriage was encouraged by Ileana's brother, King Carol II, who was jealous of Ileana's popularity in Romania and wanted to get her out of the country.[1] After the wedding, Carol claimed that the Romanian people would never tolerate a Habsburg living on Romanian soil, and on these grounds refused Ileana and Anton permission to live in Romania.[2]
After her husband was conscripted into the Luftwaffe, Ileana established a hospital for wounded Romanian soldiers at their castle, Sonneburg, outside Vienna, Austria. In 1944, she and the children moved back to Romania, where they lived at Bran Castle, near Brasov. Archduke Anton joined them but was placed under house arrest by the Red Army. Princess Ileana established and worked in another hospital in Bran village, which she named the Hospital of the Queen's Heart.
[edit] After exile
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After Michael I of Romania abdicated, Ileana and her family were exiled from the newly Communist Romania. They settled first in Switzerland, then moved to Argentina and in 1950, she and the children moved to the United States, where she bought a house in Newton, Massachusetts.
The years from 1950 to 1961 were spent lecturing against communism, working with the Romanian Orthodox Church in the United States, writing two books: I Live Again, a memoir of her last years in Romania[3], and Hospital of the Queen's Heart, describing the establishment and running the hospital.
In 1961, Princess Ileana entered the Orthodox Monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God, in Bussy, France. Her second marriage ended in divorce in 1965. On her tonsuring as a monastic, in 1967, Sister Ileana was given the name Mother Alexandra. She moved back to the United States and founded the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, serving as abbess until her retirement in 1981. She remained at the monastery until her death.
She visited Romania again in 1990, at the age of 81 in the company of her daughter, Sandi.
In January 1991, she suffered a broken hip in a fall on the evening before her eighty-second birthday, and while in hospital, suffered two major heart attacks. She died four days after the foundations had been laid for the expansion of the monastery.
[edit] Family history
[edit] Doubts about paternity
There is some doubt about Ileana's true paternity. It has been suggested[who?] that Ileana's biological father was actually Prince Barbu Ştirbey, but this, according to Hannah Pakula's biography of her mother, Queen Marie (The Last Romantic) appears to be simply rumour.
[edit] Children
Ileana and Anton had six children:
- Archduke Stefan of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (5 August 1932 - 12 November 1998)
- Archduchess Maria Ileana of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (18 December 1933 - 11 January 1959); married Franz Josef Kottulinsky (3 January 1917 - 11 January 1959). Had issue:
- Archduchess Alexandra of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (born 21 May 1935)
- Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (born 4 July 1937)
- Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (born 2 October 1939)
- Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria, Princess of Tuscany (born 15 January 1942)
[edit] Major family events
- In 1954, her marriage to Anton ended in divorce. Later that year, she married Dr. Stefan Issarescu in Newton, Massachusetts.
- Eldest son Stefan suffered a debilitating illness in 1959 which required extensive nursing, which his wife, and his mother provided.
- Eldest daughter Marie Ileana and her husband were killed in a plane crash in Brazil, along with their unborn second child. They left an orphaned daughter.
- Son Dominic was awarded retroactive rights to Bran Castle in May 2006 by the Romanian authorities as inheritance from his mother Ileana.
[edit] References
- ^ Pakula (1985). The last romantic : a biography of Queen Marie of Roumania. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297785982.
- ^ Pakula (1985). The last romantic : a biography of Queen Marie of Roumania. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297785982.
- ^ Complete text of I Live Again from the Internet Archive
