Skip to content
VitrineRoyal Houses of Europe
Sign in

Princess Elena of Romania

b. 1950

Born
15 Nov 1950, Montchoisi Clinic
Country of birth
Switzerland

Living person. The family sees only the name, dates and photo; everything else stays private unless they choose to share it.

facts
6
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Montchoisi Clinic

    Birth, Montchoisi Clinic

What was it like?

The world around Montchoisi Clinic, 1950: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Princess was born the same year as Steve Wozniak, Stevie Wonder, and Bill Murray.

Born the same year

  • Steve Wozniak

    American computer pioneer, inventor, computer engineer and programmer; co-founder of Apple Inc.

  • Stevie Wonder

    American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer (born 1950)

  • Bill Murray

    American actor and comedian

  • George Yonashiro

    Japanese association football player and manager

  • Narendra Modi

    Prime Minister of India since 2014

  • Abdullah Gül

    11th President of Turkey (born 1950)

Fashion

Stocking support methods

During the 1950s, children often used elastic garters to hold up their knitted wool stockings, as tights only became common in the late 1950s.

Around 1940–1949

Women wearing trousers in the 1940s

In the 1940s, a woman in Wädenswil was nicknamed the Manewiib for being the only person seen in public wearing gray trousers instead of a skirt.

Music
Around 1930–1949

Pressure to modernize folk bands

During the 1930s and 1940s, Ländler bands were frequently pressured by event organizers to incorporate modern instruments like saxophones and drums to satisfy dancers.

Festival music and dance traditions

Traditional music played at festivals included the alphorn, used for mountain calls to cattle, and the bödeler, a rhythmic clog dance from Central Switzerland.

Getting around

Carriages were still used for travel in 1950

In 1950, reaching remote destinations like Our Chalet in Adelboden often required combining train travel with a local bus, followed by a horse-drawn carriage for the final leg.

Cars became mass transport in mid-century Switzerland

In the 1950s and 1960s, the automobile became a mass transport mode, significantly expanding the travel radius of ordinary people compared to the mid-century period when most needs were met locally.

Daily life

Electrification made appliances commonplace

By the 1950s, electrification let Swiss households buy and use more electric appliances, including washing machines and refrigerators, directly in their apartments and houses.

Water often came from wells

In the early 1950s, most people obtained drinking, washing, and cooking water from wells rather than having household connections, which slowed social development.

Food
Around 1945–1949

War created the Ragusa chocolate bar

After the war, the popular Ragusa chocolate bar was created by stretching limited cocoa supplies with nuts imported from Italy.

Shift in Milk Consumption

Between 1950 and 1960, Switzerland shifted from raw milk consumption toward specialized products like yogurt, cream, and pasteurized milk.

Prices and wages

Gasoline versus bread prices in 1950

In 1950, one liter of gasoline in Switzerland cost 62 rappen, which was more expensive than a kilogram of brown bread. A skilled worker could earn no more than the equivalent of 4.5 liters of gasoline per hour.

Around 1946–1946

Bread and meat prices in 1946

In March 1946, a rationed kilogram of bread cost 48 centimes, while a kilogram of meat ranged from 5 to 8.25 Swiss francs.

Work

Long working hours in the 1950s

In 1950, the average working year was 2,400 hours, compared to 1,600 hours today, with the typical work week lasting nearly 50 hours.

Around 1954–1954

Demanding conditions for domestic workers

In 1954, domestic service contracts could legally require a 15-hour workday and a six-day workweek, with only eight hours of rest allowed per week.

News and letters

Apprentices memorized complex postal geography

To cope with sorting, apprentices had to memorize the entire geography of Swiss post offices, a challenging skill known as Pöstlergeographie.

Daily mail volume doubled in fifteen years

Between 1949 and 1964, the number of letters processed in Switzerland doubled to eight million per day.

During their lifetime

  1. 1953

    Television begins test operations

    In 1953, television began test operations in Switzerland, marking the start of a new era in home entertainment.

  2. 1959

    Magic formula government established

    In 1959, the four largest political parties adopted the magic formula to permanently divide the seven government seats among themselves.

  3. 1971

    Women gain voting rights

    Women were granted the right to vote in federal elections for the first time in 1971.

  4. 1980

    Zurich youth riots erupt

    In May 1980, youth riots erupted in Zurich against city funding for the opera house, triggering a wave of similar protests across Swiss cities.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.