In 1936 Princess Julianna became engaged to Prince Bernhard and they were married in 1937. Princess Beatrix, who was the queen of Holland when I wrote this was born on January 31, 1938. Prince Irene was born on August 5, 1939. We were very strongly loyalists. We believed the House of Orange was given by God and the good of Holland depended on them. Even in our strong male oriented society we didn’t have difficulty accepting that the queen was a woman. For us this wedding and the birth of those princesses were very important as for a long time it had seemed like the House of Orange might die out.

Holland’s last king, William the Third, had died in 1890. He reigned for 41 years. His first marriage with Queen Sophia was not very good. There was not a lot of peace in the family. Of the 3 princes that were born, one died at age 9, I believe the second at age 18, and the oldest, Crown prince William, quite suddenly at the age of 23. Not only between the King and Queen, but also between the King and the Crown prince, there were many problems and they disliked one another. The death of the Crown Prince left the Dutch crown without an heir. The King who was well past middle age by then married for a second time with a young German princess who became Queen Emma. This marriage was much better and she became one of the most beloved queens of Holland. The king was a not an easy person to get along with and also had a hard time getting along with the government. He didn’t like the government at all and thought that he should and could reign as a sovereign king having all the power. He was quite old already, 63 years, when princess Wilhelmina was born. She was 10 years old when King Willem died at the age of 73 and she inherited the throne. Being too young to reign, her mother, Queen Emma, reigned as regent in her place until Wilhelmina’s 18^th birthday on August 31, 1898.

In 1901 at the age of 21 the young queen married Prince Hendrik, a German prince, but they had to wait eight years before a child was born. Princess Julianna was born on April 30, 1909 and remained an only child. When in 1934 both Queen Emma, as she was still called, and Prince Hendrik died, the whole House of Orange was back to two members, a mother and her daughter. No wonder that this marriage and the birth of the two princesses was cause for such tremendous excitement to us all. Only a month after Princess Irene was born, in September 1939, the Second World War broke out.