SOPHIA

In November 1878, the Grand Ducal household fell ill with diphtheria. Alice of Hesse's eldest daughter Victoria was the first to fall ill. Diphtheria was diagnosed the following morning, and soon the disease spread to Alice's children Alix, Marie, Irene, and Ernest. Marie became seriously ill on 15th November, and Alice was called to her bedside, but by the time she arrived, Marie had choked to death. Alice kept the news of Marie's death secret from her children for several weeks, but she finally told Ernest in early December. His reaction was even worse than she had anticipated and she broke her rule about physical contact with the ill and gave him a kiss. On 14th December, the anniversary of her father Albert's death, she became seriously ill with the diphtheria she had caught from her son and died. Alice was buried on 18th December 1878 at the Grand Ducal mausoleum at Rosenhöhe outside Darmstadt, with the Union Flag draped over her coffin.Writing in her journal on the day of Alice's death, Queen Victoria referred to the recent sufferings of the family: This terrible day come round again! Shocked by grief, she wrote to her daughter Princess Victoria: My precious child, who stood by me and upheld me seventeen years ago on the same day taken, and by such an awful and fearful disease...She had darling Papa's nature, and much of his self-sacrificing character and fearless and entire devotion to duty! Princess Victoria expressed her grief to her mother in a 39-page letter, and deeply mourned Alice, the sister to whom she was closest. However, both she and her husband were forbidden from attending the funeral by the German Emperor, who was worried about their safety.From a collection of letters to Mrs Wakelin who was Nanny from about 1860 to the children of the Crown Prince (later Emperor Friedrich III) and Vicky, till 1879, when she went to look after Princess Charlotte's baby Feo. 'Pysie' is probably a nicknames that they gave her. She remarried in 1886 to William Morter of Hampstead. Her children Gertrude and John came out to Potsdam soon after their mother, and Gertrude in particular struck up a long friendship with Princess Charlotte, who was the same age, and with whom she went to school.