Skip to content
VitrineRoyal Houses of Europe
Sign in

Princess Ioana, Princess Nicolae of Romania

1902–1963

Born
24 Sep 1902, Bucharest
Country of birth
Kingdom of Romania, today Romania
Died
1963, Madrid
facts
9
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 · Bucharest

    Birth, Bucharest

  2. Died · Madrid

    Death, Madrid

What was it like?

The world around Bucharest, 1902: 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 Leni Riefenstahl, William Wyler, and Ansel Adams.

Born the same year

  • Leni Riefenstahl

    German filmmaker, photographer, actress, and nazi propagandist (1902–2003)

  • William Wyler

    Swiss-German-American director and producer (1902–1981)

  • Ansel Adams

    American photographer and environmentalist (1902–1984)

  • Gianpiero Combi

    Italian association football player (1902-1956)

  • John Steinbeck

    American writer (1902–1968)

  • Karl Popper

    Austrian-British philosopher of science and social and política e falsificationism and for criticism of Plato, Hegel and Marx as totalitarian opponents of open society (1902-1994)

Fashion

Massive 10 kg wedding shirt

A wedding shirt made for the Junii Brașovului was so elaborate that four women spent four months embroidering it with 40,000 sequins, weighing nearly 10 kg.

Traditional slum fashion in Bucharest

Men in old Bucharest slums wore sheepskin fur hats all year, trousers tucked into high-heeled boots with rubber elastic, and wrapped themselves five times with red or green wool belts.

Music

Four-day wedding musical traditions

In rural Romania, weddings were significant musical events lasting four days, featuring professional musicians such as Roma fiddlers who played for dances and accompanied ritual moments like the crowning of the bride.

The buhai ox-bellow instrument

A unique instrument called the buhai was used during New Year celebrations, created from a wooden tub covered with a perforated hide that a performer pulled with wet hands to mimic an ox's bellow.

Getting around

Bucharest–Constanța: 4h 34m express

For an express train, the Bucharest–Constanța route (228 km) was done in 4 hours and 34 minutes.

Bucharest–Vârciorova: eight hours by rail

In the 1900s, a train covered about 382 km from Bucharest to Vârciorova (at the Austro-Hungarian border) in roughly eight hours.

Daily life

Early indoor water and baths

In 1901, Bucharest had only 5,000 water subscribers for a population of 300,000, and households were taxed based on the number of rooms rather than actual water usage. Early indoor bathrooms were considered such novelties that friends would visit specifically to admire them.

Rural resistance to education

Rural children were often kept from primary school to help with labor, as peasant families saw little immediate benefit to formal education. Many parents harbored a deep fear of the school, influenced by the traditional belief that the rod is torn from paradise.

Food

Harvests often converted into alcohol

To produce high volumes of alcohol, peasants frequently converted significant portions of their fruit and corn harvests into brandy.

Mămăligă was the essential daily food

Corn-based mămăligă was the foundation of the peasant diet, often consumed daily and sometimes multiple times a day.

Prices and wages

Worker daily wages in the early 1900s

In the early 1900s, a day laborer typically earned 2 lei per day, while a skilled worker earned between 3 and 4 lei.

Cost of a pair of boots

At the beginning of the 20th century, a pair of custom-made boots cost 10 to 11 lei, and by 1913, the price of a pair of men's boots rose to 15 lei.

Work
Around 1900–1901

Urban Wages and Labor

Urban laborers, such as bricklayers or carpenters in Timisoara, could earn 1 crown per hour in 1901, while unskilled day laborers earned 3 crowns per day.

Around 1905–1905

Extended Kindergarten Hours

In 1905, some kindergartens in Timisoara operated with extended hours from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM, providing childcare and two meals a day.

News and letters

Costs of postal and telegraph services

In 1894, sending a newspaper by post cost 1.5 bani, while a 5-kilogram package via the messenger service cost 20 bani. Telegrams within the country were taxed at 5 bani per word as of 1895, reduced from the previous rate of 8 bani.

Mail delivery times and local transport methods

During this period, postal shipments in Romania generally took 2 to 3 days to reach their recipients by train. In rural areas, mail was still frequently transported between post offices and train stations using hand mail carts or bicycles.

During their lifetime

  1. 1916

    High casualties and epidemic during World War I

    During World War I, around 700,000 Romanians died, including 430,000 civilians, and the population suffered from a raging typhoid epidemic.

  2. 1918

    1918 flu epidemic ends urban death cycles

    The 1918 flu pandemic was the last major epidemic to severely impact urban life, after which cities began growing through natural increase.

  3. 1919

    1919 8-hour workday institutionalized after strike

    Following the 1919 La Canadiense strike, the government institutionalized the 8-hour workday, significantly altering labor conditions.

  4. 1919

    1919 Madrid Metro opens urban transit expansion

    The Madrid Metro opened in 1919, eventually transporting nearly 100 million passengers annually by 1929 and transforming urban mobility.

  5. 1921

    Radical agrarian reform redistributes land

    The 1921 agrarian reform was one of the most radical in Eastern Europe, removing inequitable land distribution where 5,835 landowners held 47.7% of arable land.

  6. 1925

    Air travel becomes accessible to people

    Starting in 1925, air travel became a common and relatively inexpensive means of transportation for citizens.

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.