Queen Maria of Yugoslavia returns home

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Princess Maria of Romania, Princess Mignon, Queen Maria of Yugoslavia, Romanian Royal Family, Serbian Royal family

Queen Maria of Yugoslavia

The body of Queen Maria of Yugoslavia is to be repatriated to Belgrade after being exhumed from the Royal Burial Ground at Windsor on 26 April 2013. Her body was exhumed on Friday after permission was given by the Queen and the remains transferred from Windsor to a Serbian Orthodox church in London. A memorial service will take place on 28 April in London. Queen Maria’s body will then be flown back to Belgrade, accompanied by her grandson Crown Prince Alexander. The body will then be interred at the Royal mausoleum at Topola.  Queen Maria’s son, who died in 1970 and was buried in Illinois, was repatriated from the US in January. King Peter’s wife Queen Alexandra was buried in Athens and her body will be returned in May. Serbia will hold a state funeral for Queen Maria, King Peter II and Queen Alexandra on 26 May. [Source: Telegraph]

Source: Serbian Royal Family

Commemoration of 30 years since Queen-Mother Helen of Romania died

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King Michael of Romania, Queen Helen of Romania, Romanian Royal Family

Queen-Mother Helen of Romania at Savarsin, 1942

Queen Helen of Romania won world wide sympathy in the 1930s for the indignities she suffered at the hands of King Carol II, of which she divorced in 1928. She had to leave Romania after 1931, and see her son only a few weeks in a year.

Allowed to return in the country following the second ascension of King Michael, she became involved in charitable activities, was a Red Cross sustainer, and stood at her son’s side during official occasions. The Queen Mother was a staunch defender of Romania’s Jewish population in the dark years of fascism and the Holocaust, her contribution being recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among Nations. From January 1948, after the communist takeover, Queen Helen lived in exile in Florence and Lausanne, where she died on 28 November 1982. Diana M

Princess Ragnhild of Norway

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Princess Ragnhild of Norway

Princess Ragnhild (right) together with her siblings, Prince Harald (today King of Norway) & Princess Astrid

On September 16th, Princess Ragnhild of Norway, Mrs. Lorentzen, died in Brazil at 82. She was King Harald V of Norway’s oldest sister.

WWI era US Army soldier’s gravestone in Bellu Cemetery, Bucharest

Historic Houses of Romania - Case de Epoca

I organised last Sunday (24 June ’12) a thematic architectural tour in Bellu Cemetery, also known as the national pantheon of Romania. We visited the Christian Orthodox section of this huge necropolis, which is in its turn is divided in a civilian part, the largest, and a smaller military one. I found there a headstone marking the grave of an US Army soldier and relief worker from the Great War era: “Edward Newell Ware, Illinois, Pvt. I Cl., Ambulance Service, US Army, American Relief Mission, May 7. 1919”. That is a rare find in Romania as the US Army was not directly involved in war operations on the Romanian front, where the largest number of casualties among allies came from the Russian Imperial Army, followed by the French Army. The British had fewer casualties, especially among the Navy, involved on the Danube operations. In any case, the American soldier interred at…

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In Memoriam Ivor Porter

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Ivor Forsyth Porter Obituary, Ivor Porter, Ivor Porter Obituary, King Michael of Romania

The extraordinary Ivor Forsyth Porter, CMG OBE (Mily), Cross of the Royal House of Romania, Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (Romania), died on 29th May 2012, at the age of ninety nine years. He was a hero of the WWII and a close friend of King Michael of Romania, instrumental in the successful execution of the 23 August 1944 royal coup through which the Romanian sovereign arrested the military fascist leader Ion Antonescu and his country joined the Allied cause against Germany, shortening the war by at least six months. He published two books “Operation Autonomous: With SOE in Wartime Romania” (Chatto & Windus, 1989) and ‘Michael of Romania. The King and the Country” (Sutton, 2005). I am honored to be connected with the later book, which contains a genealogy of the Romanian Royal Family that I compiled for the publishers.