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Friday, November 14, 2008

an American husband for Maria of Isenburg




November 14, 1908 

 Princess Marie of Isenburg-Büdingen is currently visiting the United States. She arrived in the US on the North German Lloyd liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie several weeks ago and was accompanied by Professor and Mrs. Robert Hilprecht, with whom she had traveled from Darmstadt. Professor Hilprecht is a celebrated Assyriologist at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The Princess is apparently about to become engaged to the Professor's stepson, Attmore Robinson, a Baltimore-based millionaire. The couple first met while traveling through Italy several years ago, and they have spent time together in Germany. Marie's "decision to acquire a Yankee husband is marked as an epoch-making event." This would be the first time that a "European princess has done such a wholly unconventional thing." 

It is said that Maria's parents "have given their consent to the alliance reluctantly." 

She is the daughter of the Prince and Princess of Isenburg und Büdingen

This would not the first marriage between a member of the Isenburg princely family and an American. Prince Karl zu Isenburg-Birstein married a New Orleans girl, Bertha Lewis, in 1895. Karl's older brother, Leopold, "paid court" to Miss Mary Pullman, whose father was the sleeping car magnate, but failed "to get either the girl or her dollars on account of the opposition of her thrifty father." 

(This story was pure speculation. No engagement was announced. In 1910, the Marquise de Fontenoy reported that Marie had just become engaged to Dom Domenico Aloisi. This marriage took place on June 23, 1910. The couple had six children: Mariangela, Mario, Carlo Federico, Anna, Ramonda, and Franca.)

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