In September 1940 Michael was restored to the throne. Now aged eighteen, he recalled his mother to Romania. She received the designation Queen Mother of Romania (Regina-mamÄ Elena). During World War II she devoted herself to the care of the wounded. For her efforts to rescue Romanian Jews from the Nazi Germans, she was awarded the status of Righteous Among the Nations.
As a cousin of the bridegroom, she was a leading guest at the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
In December 1947 Michael was forced to abdicate. Helen returned to San Domenico, at Villa Sparta. Later she lived at Lausanne and Florence.
Helen died at the age of 86 in Lausanne in 1982.
Read more about this topic: Helen Of Greece And Denmark
Famous quotes containing the words queen and/or mother:
“The Queen has lands and gold, Mother
The Queen has lands and gold,
While you are forced to your empty breast
A skeleton Babe to hold”
—Amelia Edwards (1831–1892)
“Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she
sings.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)