Another Royal Visitor

Queen Marie of Romania and her two youngest children, Prince Nicholas and Princess Ileana, traveled across the U.S. in 1926 with a stop in the capital to call on the President on their way to the State of Washington. Queen Marie was the consort of King Ferdinand and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Her father was Prince Alfred, Victoria and Albert’s second son. Her mother was Grand Duchess Marie, the daughter of the Russian czar, Alexander II. Marie's father chose a naval career, and the family lived in Malta for many years so she grew up away from English court life.

At age 17, she married a man ten years her senior. She went to live in a country ruled by her husband’s uncle, King Carol who was very unsure how to use the talents of this worldly young woman. Marie’s marriage was unhappy, but she was able to use the media to bring attention to this country which had only recently gained freedom from the Ottoman Empire. She wrote books and articles for the English speaking world, and she mothered six children.

The Queen of Romania had become renown after World War I when she argued personally and passionately at the peace talks in Paris for an increase to Romania’s territory to include all areas where people spoke Romanian. She was successful in expanding her country’s footprint by more than 60 percent.

The Chief Usher at the White House remembered the October 19^th visit this way:

“Of course all eyes were on the Queen, especially during her efforts to engage the President in conversation. In this she was not any more successful than others who had tried it before. Before the dinner was over, the Queen realized that most of the published reports of the President's uncommunicative disposition were true. She also seemed to appreciate that the President was paying more attention to the Princess than he was to her, for she was heard to remark to the Princess, upon leaving the White House, that the latter had made more impression during the evening than she had herself.”

Source: Hoover, Irwin H. (Ike). 42 Years in the White House. Cambridge, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, 1934, Chapter XVI, We Entertain Queen Marie.