LIEVEN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-25 published
In praise of humble, decent princess
By Anthony
REINHART,
Tuesday,
November 25, 2003 - Page A12
She took many a meal at Swiss Chalet, where she had her own booth
and the wait staff called her Candy Lady. Louise
LIEVEN, you
see, always had a handful of Werther's Originals for the people
she loved, and in her world, that meant just about everyone.
Others called her Mom, since Mrs.
LIEVEN was always ready with
a wise word or a $20 bill for a neighbour in need.
Few ever called her by her official title -- Her Serene Highness
Princess
Louise
Marie -- but then, neither did she. Mrs.
LIEVEN,
who died a week ago at 90, knew more than most about hardship
and humility, and to her mind, deeds carried more weight than
words.
Her impact on those close to her was evident yesterday, when
about 100 people crammed a Toronto funeral chapel to pay tribute
to the Latvian-born woman who came by her title through marriage
to her "Prince Johnny" -- Charles Jean Christophe
LIEVEN -- in
Toronto in the late 1970s.
"She embraced people without regard for their racial or ethnic
background," Mrs.
LIEVEN's niece, Laila
EBERHARDT, told the gathered
crowd, many of them neighbours from the East York high-rise where
she died last week.
Mrs. LIEVEN's appreciation for decency was hard won.
Born in 1913 to a wealthy family, the young Louise
VON
DZIENGEL
enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Riga, the Baltic nation's
capital, and counted young Prince John
LIEVEN among many Friends.
She married another man, however, and as the winds of war blew
across Europe, gave birth to a daughter in March, 1940.
Everything changed three months later, when Stalin's Red Army
rolled into Latvia, made it a Soviet republic, and began deporting
the upper classes to Russia -- people like the
VON
DZIENGELs
and the LIEVENs, who shared a Germanic background and Christian
faith.
Louise's father sought refuge in Germany, while her mother and
aunt stayed behind to mind the family assets. Her father soon
died of a heart attack, while her mother and aunt were shipped
to Siberia.
Fearing for the life of her child, she left her husband and fled
with the baby to Sweden -- only to lose her little girl to pneumonia
months later.
"Louise was alone, in a foreign land, without any means of supporting
herself," Ms.
EBERHARDT told the congregation yesterday. "But
Louise was a survivor."
As the war raged, she continued to drift farther from her Eastern
European home, to Denmark, then to Spain, Argentina and Mexico
in the years that followed. She was working alone as a seamstress
in Mexico City when her mother, released after 15 years in a
Siberian prison camp, joined her.
When her mother died, Louise "was looking to reconnect and reach
out to people dear to her," and that's when she learned, from
a friend in Germany, that John
LIEVEN was living in Toronto.
She contacted him and learned he, too, had his first marriage
blown in separate directions by the Second World War. The prince
visited Mexico and the rest was history: the pair, well into
their 60s by then, fell madly in love. They settled in Toronto,
where John was a salesman for a food distributor.
Mrs. LIEVEN lost her prince in December, 1996, after a series
of strokes. But she did not lose her love of people.
That much was apparent at yesterday's funeral, where 10 people
shared their thoughts of Mrs.
LIEVEN.
One neighbour spoke of the coffee parties she organized for the
building's seniors last winter, and how she'd always kiss him
on both cheeks, one for him, the other for his wife. Another
recalled how she bought Christmas gifts for three young boys
whose father had died. A woman, widowed around the same time
as Mrs. LIEVEN, talked about how they'd meet each afternoon for
mutual support: "We'd have a little drink and we'd settle all
the world's problems," she said.
And Sandy SRIPATHY, her neighbour across the hall, talked through
tears about the lady she called Mom.
A few weeks ago, Mrs.
LIEVEN confided that she might not make
it to Christmas, as she was feeling ill.
She told Mrs.
SRIPATHY to watch her door, and to check on her
if the newspaper was still hanging from the knob by late morning.
Last
Tuesday,
Mrs.
SRIPATHY watched the princess fetch her paper
as usual, but later that day, she learned that her neighbour
had died.
After a brief reception upstairs, the guests filed from the funeral
home, but not before making one last stop: at a crystal candy
bowl, perched by the door.
L... Names LI... Names LIE... Names Welcome Home
LIEVEN - All Categories in OGSPI