Please thank Brown for his kind wishes. I am so sorry that I missed saying good-bye to several. To say the truth, I dreaded it. It is always so painful. The old Baron’s[121] way of disappearing was almost the best.
[1874].
During the first months of this year the Princess had the comfort of seeing many of her relations. The year was chiefly spent in retirement, and devoted to many sad memories. On the 24th of May she gave birth to a daughter, whose christening took place on the 11th of July at Jugenheim, near Darmstadt, in the presence of the Empress of Russia and the Duke of Edinburgh. The child received the names of Marie Victoria Feodora Leopoldine.
The hottest part of the summer was spent at Blankenberghe for the use of sea-baths. In September the great manœuvres of the Eleventh Army Corps took place in Upper Hesse, where the Princess met the Emperor of Germany.
The Princess’ charitable institutions were all prospering, and assuming larger and larger proportions; amongst them the Princess’ own hospital was by degrees slowly approaching completion. It was the institution she had the most at heart. It was intended to be a training-school for those who intended to become nurses, and a home for probationers whose training was at an end. It was also to serve as a model of those reforms in sanitary arrangements which the Princess had so much at heart.
When the provisional English hospital at Darmstadt (already mentioned during the war in 1870) had been taken over by the Hessian authorities, all its furniture, appointments, etc., were left to the “Alice Ladies’ Union” for the small hospital which it had started, aided by a small body of doctors in Darmstadt. This was the origin of the “Alice Hospital,” begun in a very small humble way in a cramped little house in the Mauer-Strasse. The Frauen-Verein had undertaken, when the English National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded had made over their hospital to them, either to build quite a new one or thoroughly to reorganize the existing one on the Mauer-Strasse. There were no funds to build a new hospital; therefore the “Alice Ladies’ Union,” could only resort to the other alternative, and this was carried out to the letter, by additional buildings and a totally new arrangement of its interior. As time went on, it was found advisable to give the hospital a distinct administration, and to separate it from the “Alice Ladies’ Union,” placing special funds at its disposal. This never would have come to pass, nor would the hospital have proved the success it did, had it not been for the untiring zeal, perseverance, economy, and practical knowledge of the lady directing it. During the summer months of 1874, a lady well acquainted with German and English hospitals—a trained nurse herself—became Lady Superintendent of the training-school for nurses, and of the hospital generally, which gradually, but surely, was gaining in importance.
The Alice Union for the Employment of Women made a further step in advance during this year, and established itself on a firm broad basis under the name of “The Alice Society for the Education and Employment of Women of all Classes.” Of this the Princess was the President, whilst Fräulein Louise Büchner directed the whole. The gentlemen and ladies who formed the committee were chosen by the Princess. All worked most harmoniously together; and the Princess was as anxious to receive advice from others in matters concerning the society as she was glad to give it herself.
Darmstadt, January 12th.
* * * How low and miserable I am at times in these rooms, particularly when I go to bed, I cannot tell you! The impression of all is so vivid and heart-rending. I could cry out for pain sometimes.