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Monday, March 14, 2011

BULLETIN: Duchess of Connaught dead

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 March 14, 1917

The Duchess of Connaught, the wife of the Duke of Connaught, died tonight "of bronchial pneumonia after an illness lasting for several days."

The Duchess' family and friends have been aware for several days that her "case was hopeless," reports the New York Times.  In the latter stages of her illness "oxygen was frequently administered."  Her doctors believed that the duchess could have overcome her illness if her "strength had not been sapped by an operation in London 1913.

She was still conscious this afternoon, and was "able to recognize the members of her family, who had gathered at her bedside."

It was during a visit to Quebec in June 1912, when the Duke of Connaught was Governor-General of Canada when she was "stricken with peritonitis," and she was taken to a hospital in Montreal.  She suffered a second attack in January 1913, and in April of that year, the Duchess of Connaught underwent an appendectomy in London.  The surgery is said to have caused a "chronic obstruction." 

The Duchess returned to Canada, but due to her increasing poor health, the Duke of Connaught, uncle to the present king, resigned his position and returned to England in October 1913.

The Duchess of Connaught was very fond of Americans.  She visited the late Ambassador and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid in London and spent two Christmasses at Cliveden Manor with Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf Astor.  She was a very active supporter of charities, and "took a personal interest in the working classes."

She is survived by her husband, the Duke of Connaught, three children, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden,  Prince Arthur, an officer in the British army currently fighting in France, Princess Patricia, and six grandchildren, Hereditary Prince Gustaf Adolf, Prince Sigvard, Princess Ingrid, Prince Bertil and Prince Carl Johan of Sweden and Prince Alistair of Connaught.

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