Skip to content

Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walpurga Bernadette Gräfin Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár

1911–1988

Born
2 Aug 1911, Baden
Country of birth
Austria–Hungary, today Austria
Died
17 Apr 1988, Sydney
facts
7
sources
2
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth2 Aug 1911, BadenProbable1 source
  • Death17 Apr 1988, SydneyProbable1 source
  • UnionGünther von ReibnitzConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Baden

    Birth, Baden

  2. Child born: Marie Christine, Princess Michael of Kent

    Birth, Karlovy Vary

  3. Died · Sydney

    Death, Sydney

What was it like?

The world around Baden, 1911: 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.

Maria was born the same year as Ronald Reagan, Lucille Ball, and Ginger Rogers.

Known for

Maria Anna Caroline Franziska Walpurga Bernadette Szapáry de Muraszombath, Széchysziget et Szápár foi uma condessa britânica, filha do conde Frigyes Szapáry e da condessa Hedwig von Szapáry, filha de Alfredo III, Príncipe de Windisch-Grätz, que tinha sido ministro Presidente da Áustria entre 1893-1895 e serviu como presidente da Câmara Alta.

Born the same year
  • Ronald Reagan

    president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and actor (1911–2004)

  • Lucille Ball

    American actress (1911–1989)

  • Ginger Rogers

    American actress and dancer (1911–1995)

  • Alfredo Foni

    Italian footballer (1911-1985)

  • Naguib Mahfouz

    Egyptian writer (1911–2006)

  • Georges Pompidou

    President of France from 1969 to 1974

Fashion

Infant swaddling for physical development

To help them grow straight, infants in the Kirchberg region were placed in a swaddling cushion for several months, which prevented them from moving or kicking.

Strict social dress codes in Vienna

Prosperous women in Vienna followed strict rules for social success, requiring different outfits for specific daily activities like morning errands, afternoon tea, or exhibition openings.

Music

Instruments and foot-tapping dance customs

In the Ziller Valley, traditional wedding music was performed by ensembles consisting of two fiddles, a diatonic accordion, a Tyrolean folk harp, and a string bass. Dancers at these events frequently tapped their toes in time with the music, using specific patterns for two-four and three-four time signatures.

Traditional wedding dance and procession music

The Zillertaler Tramplan was a traditional wedding dance performed as the wedding party walked from the church to the inn. It was a regional dance piece that later became a musical signature of tourism in the Ziller Valley.

Getting around
Around 1914–1914

State control of Austrian railways in 1914

By 1914, the Imperial-Royal State Railways held a near monopoly, with 82 percent of the 22,981 kilometers of railway tracks in Austria being state-owned.

Daily life

Housing for the poor in Vienna

In 1909, around 66,000 people in Vienna were bed-renters who did not have their own home and paid to use a bed for only a few hours. Many tenement buildings lacked running water, toilets, and electricity, requiring residents to collect water from a corridor tap called a Bassena.

Around 1918–1924

Childhood and education in Tyrol

Children in rural Tyrol often faced heavy agricultural labor, which frequently hindered their school attendance. Access to further education was strictly dependent on the family's financial situation.

Food

Ideal middle-class meals and coffee house culture

Before the war, the ideal middle-class meal consisted of a three-course menu featuring soup, a main dish of meat with side dishes, and dessert. Intellectuals frequented coffee houses around 1900 to enjoy coffee drinks like the Melange.

Around 1914–1918

War bread and synthetic food substitutes

When bread grain became scarce during the war, bakers used inferior surrogates, causing the resulting "war bread" to crumble into thousands of crumbs when cut. Housewives also increasingly relied on synthetic food substitutes like margarine and beet sugar to supplement limited supplies.

Prices and wages
Around 1910–1910

Cost of soup ingredients in 1910

In 1910, a Maggi beef bouillon cube cost 5 hellers, whereas a full kilogram of soup meat was significantly more expensive at 1 crown and 50 hellers.

Work

Hardships of domestic service work

Domestic servants often worked from early morning until late at night, and until 1911, masters had the legal right to physically punish their staff. Even after laws were passed in 1920 to limit hours to 13 per day, many servants continued to work longer shifts and could not lock their own rooms.

Low wages and long hours

A worker in wool weaving could earn 34 Heller for finishing a shoulder collar, which took a significant amount of time, or roughly 51 Heller per day if highly skilled. Cigarette paper production workers could earn 10 to 12 Kronen for a long shift starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 8:30 p.m.

During their lifetime

  1. 1914

    Wartime inflation begins, 1914

    Just after war broke out in 1914, the government began using the printing press to fund military costs, causing the money supply to expand by 977 percent by 1918.

  2. 1915

    Ersatz bread introduced, 1915

    In early 1915, the government forced citizens to eat bread made with ersatz ingredients like sawdust because food supplies were severely depleted.

  3. 1919

    Women gain vote, 1919

    The new Republic introduced women's suffrage, with women voting for the first time in the February 1919 national assembly elections.

  4. 1919

    Spanish Flu epidemic kills thousands

    The Spanish Flu epidemic arrived in Australia via soldiers returning from World War I, killing more than 11,500 people between 1919 and 1920.

  5. 1923

    Hyperinflation peak, 1923

    In 1923, the cost-of-living index soared to 1,183,600 compared to 100 in 1914, reflecting the catastrophic hyperinflation after the war.

  6. 1924

    Yallourn Power Station begins operation

    The first power was switched to Melbourne from the Yallourn Power Station, a major step for electricity infrastructure.

Family

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.