Princess Ileana of Romania

Infobox Romanian Royalty|highness
name = Princess Ileana
title = Princess Ileana of Romania

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imgw = 200px
titles = "HRH" Princess Ileana of Romania
full name =
spouse = Archduke Anton of Austria, Prince of Tuscany
Dr. Stefan Nikolas Issarescu
issue = Archduke Stefan
Archduchess Maria Ileana
Archduchess Alexandra
Archduke Dominic
Archduchess Maria Magdalena
Archduchess Elisabeth
royal house = House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
House of Habsburg-Lorraine
father = Ferdinand I of Romania
mother = Marie of Edinburgh
date of birth = birth date|1909|1|5|mf=y
place of birth = flagicon|Romania Bucharest, Romania
date of death = death date and age|1991|1|21|1909|1|5|mf=y
place of death = flagicon|USA Youngstown, Ohio, USA

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.

Born in Bucharest, 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.

Before King Michael's abdication

In Sinaia on 26 July 1931, Ileana married the Archduke Anton of Austria, Prince of Tuscany. 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. [cite book | first = |Hannah | last = Pakula | title = The last romantic : a biography of Queen Marie of Roumania | id = ISBN 0297785982 | publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson | year = 1985 | location = London] 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. [cite book | first = |Hannah | last = Pakula | title = The last romantic : a biography of Queen Marie of Roumania | id = ISBN 0297785982 | publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson | year = 1985 | location = London]

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 in the beloved memory of her mother Queen Maria of Romania.

After exile

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 [ [http://www.archive.org/details/liveagainprinces011739mbp Complete text of "I Live Again"] from the Internet Archive] , and "Hospital of the Queen's Heart", describing the establishment and running the hospital.

In 29 May 1954 Ileana and Anton officially divorced and she married secondly in Newton, Massachusetts, on 20 June 1954 Dr. Stefan Nikolas Issarescu (Turnu-Severin, 5 October 1906 - Providence, 21 December 2002), without issue.

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.

Family history

Doubts about paternity

There is some doubt about Ileana's true paternity. It has been suggestedWho|date=July 2007 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.

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:
**Maria Ileana Kottulinsky (born 25 August 1958)
*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)

Major family events

*In 1954, her marriage to Anton ended in divorce. Later that year, she married Dr. Stefan Nikolas 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.

References

External links

* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/romania.html Royal House of Romania]
* [http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/tuscany.html Grand-Ducal House of Tuscany]
* [http://www.tkinter.smig.net/QueenMarie/CastleBran Bran Castle]
* [http://www.tkinter.smig.net/PrincessIleana Princess Ileana]
* [http://www.stlukeorthodox.com/html/supplication/motheralexandra.cfm Mother Alexandra]

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1= 1. Princess Ileana of Romania
2= 2. Ferdinand I of Romania
3= 3. Marie of Edinburgh
4= 4. Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern
5= 5. Infanta Antónia of Portugal
6= 6. Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
7= 7. Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia
8= 8. Charles Anthony, Prince of Hohenzollern
9= 9. Princess Josephine of Baden
10= 10. Ferdinand II of Portugal
11= 11. Maria II of Portugal
12= 12. Albert, Prince Consort
13= 13. Victoria of the United Kingdom
14= 14. Alexander II of Russia
15= 15. Marie of Hesse
16= 16. Charles, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
17= 17. Marie Antoinette Murat
18= 18. Karl, Grand Duke of Baden
19= 19. Stéphanie de Beauharnais
20= 20. Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
21= 21. Maria Antonia, Princess of Koháry
22= 22. Pedro I of Brazil
23= 23. Maria Leopoldina of Austria
24= 24. Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
25= 25. Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
26= 26. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
27= 27. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
28= 28. Nicholas I of Russia
29= 29. Charlotte of Prussia
30= 30. Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse
31= 31. Princess Wilhelmine of Baden