Monday, November 7, 2016

Princess prefers mop to court




November 7, 1926


Princess Alexandra Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein prefers scrubbing floors to "sitting in the princely halls of Potsdam.  The princess, who is divorced from Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, fourth son of former Kaiser Wilhelm II, lives in Munich with her second husband, Commander Arnold Rümann, reports the Associated Press.

The princess was found cleaning floors "by a prominent Berlin lawyer," who had called upon her at her home.  The lawyer was surprised to find the princess cleaning her home.

She said to him: "No doubt you are surprised to see me doing housework, but believe me I am a thousand times happier managing my own home and supporting myself than I ever was when breathing the muggy air of the Potsdam court."

A niece of the late Empress Auguste Viktoria,  Princess Alexandra "depends on her artistic skills for her livelihood.  Her commoner husband has no fortune apart from a small pension.

Her Munich home is a "snug, comfortable apartment.  She does her own housework and cooking.  Every day, the princess and her husband go shopping.   Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1920, and she remarried two years later.  The only sadness for the "democratic Princess," now nearly 40 years old, and "still famed for her beauty, is the desire to see her only son, Prince Alexander Ferdinand, no 13.  A German court awarded custody of the young boy to his father, and he is being raised in Potsdam by his father and his uncle, Prince Eitel Friedrich.

Princess Alexandra Viktoria recently exhibited her portraits and landscapes in Berlin, where she received "fashionable comment from critics."

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