"Family Curse"
Some considered the Hessian family victims of a curse due to the number of premature deaths in the family. Johanna was a great niece of Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, both of whom were killed with family members during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Her maternal great-grandmother Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and a great aunt, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, died of diphtheria. A haemophiliac great-uncle, Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine, tumbled twenty feet through an open window at age two and died of a brain hemorrhage hours later. An aunt, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, died at age eight of virulent typhoid, though she was rumored to have eaten from a poisoned dish meant for Nicholas II of Russia. One of Johanna's great-uncles, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was killed in 1979 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army along with his 14-year-old grandson, Nicholas Knatchbull, and his daughter's mother-in-law, Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne. Early deaths continued into the next generation, when Leonora Knatchbull, a great-granddaughter of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, died at age five of a kidney tumor in 1991.
Read more about this topic: Princess Johanna Of Hesse And By Rhine
Famous quotes containing the words family and/or curse:
“Being in a family is like being in a play. Each birth order position is like a different part in a play, with distinct and separate characteristics for each part. Therefore, if one sibling has already filled a part, such as the good child, other siblings may feel they have to find other parts to play, such as rebellious child, academic child, athletic child, social child, and so on.”
—Jane Nelson (20th century)
“What, shall we curse the planets of mishap
That plotted thus our glory’s overthrow?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)