Margaret of Hesse and by the Rhine
Margaret Princess of Hesse and the Rhine (born March 18, 1913 in Dublin ; † January 26, 1997 in Wolfsgarten Castle near Langen (Hesse) ; born Margaret Campbell Geddes ) was a functionary of the German Red Cross (DRK).
Life
Geddes was born as the daughter of the British diplomat and professor (since 1942 Lord) Auckland Geddes and the American Isabella Gamble Ross. She worked for the British Red Cross in a juvenile prison. On November 17, 1937, she married Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt (1908–1968) in London . Almost the entire family of the groom's brother, Georg Donatus von Hessen-Darmstadt , was killed in an aircraft accident near Ostend ( Belgium ) while traveling to the wedding .
Margaret remained active in Germany for the German Red Cross and made Wolfsgarten Castle available as a military hospital during the Second World War . By lending the famous Darmstadt Madonna to the museum in Basel, she and her husband made it possible for Darmstadt children, the Madonna children, to spend holidays in Davos, Switzerland, in the 1940s and 1950s . From 1957 she was Vice-President of the DRK Hessen and chairwoman of the Alice Hospital and the Eleonoren Children's Clinic (now the Darmstadt Children's Clinic Princess Margaret ). She was a close friend of the British Queen Elizabeth II.
With her death, the Hessen-Darmstadt line became extinct , her inheritance fell to the Hessen-Kassel-Rumpenheim line . She is buried together with her husband Ludwig, who died in 1968, in a simple communal grave on the Rosenhöhe .
Honors
- 1976: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1990: Hessian Order of Merit
- 1993: Wilhelm Leuschner Medal
literature
- Eckhart G. Franz , Karl E. Schlapp: Margaret Princess of Hesse and the Rhine. A memorial book. 1997.
- Markus von Hänsel-Hohenhausen: Margaret Princess of Hesse and the Rhine. New notes. Brentano Society Frankfurt / M. mbH 2015, ISBN 978-3-933800-46-6 .
Web links
- Margaret of Hesse and by Rhine in the database of Find a Grave (English)
- Hesse and by Rhine, Margaret Princess of. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Hessen and near Rhine, Margaret von |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Geddes, Margaret Campbell (maiden name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German functionary of the German Red Cross |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 18, 1913 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Dublin |
DATE OF DEATH | January 26, 1997 |
Place of death | Wolfsgarten Castle near Langen (Hesse) |