Romanian Princess was a Tucson visitor

The princess, whose father was Prince Kretulesco, was born in 1893. Her parents divorced and at the age of three her father placed her in an English orphanage. After his ex-wife died, the prince moved with Catherine to France. With the help of an aunt, she escaped and returned to Romania in 1908, where she was raised by her mother’s family.

She married Prince Caradja and in 1916, with the German occupation underway, the left Bucharest. She returned after the war with her husband and two young children.

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_{1958 Star files}

_{Princess Caradja in 1958.}

She reopened the orphanage her mother had started with a “foundation for orphans.” The motto of the orphanage was “A mother who lost her child; for children who lost their mother” – a reference to her daughter, Catherine. There were 21 orphanages in the system.

During WWII, the princess took in Allied air crewman who were shot down behind enemy lines. “My first encounter with an American,” she recalled in a 1958 Star interview, “was when a young aviator practically fell out of the sky into my garden at Prahova. He was such a young looking boy that I couldn’t let him risk the chance of capture or maybe being killed by the enemy.” The Nazis eventually left her alone when they realized how determined she was.

She never forgot her “boys” and they never forgot her.

Following the Soviet occupation and widowed, she fled Romania in 1952. She finally reached the United States, in 1955. Here she met up with some of the crewmen she had saved. They became her sponsors in this country.

They collected money to support her and to help her travel the country to spread her message of freedom. Often she stayed with them while travelling. She warned of the communist threat to anyone who would listen. They had taken over her orphanages and confiscated all of her property. “I used to be a nice plump 170 and something. The darling Reds slimmed me down to 95 in three years,” she said.

The princess visited Tucson at least three times, the first in 1958 and again in 1962. She made several speaking engagements while here.

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_{1979 Star photo}

_{Princess Caradja in 1979}

In 1979, at the age of 86, she was on a what she said was her last tour. She continued to spread her message on freedom. “I had enough dictatorship from Hitler and Stalin. All I want is my own two feet and my own tongue wagging. That way I can tell the truth,” she told the Star.

Princess Caradja moved back to Romania and was given some acreage on the old family estate. She died in 1993 at the age of 100.

For more on the princess, there are several websites devoted to her. Including The Handbook of Texas Online and The Siege of Ploiesti.