Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi

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Countess Geraldine Margit Virginia Olga Maria Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi (6 August 1915 - 22 October 2002), known as Queen Geraldine, was the Queen consort of King Zog I of Albania.

Geraldine was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father was Julius (or Gyula) Count Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi (or: Nagyappony; (born on August 15, 1873 Nagyappony, now Slovakia – died on May 27, 1924 in Budapest, Hungary). Her mother was Gladys Virginia Steuart (born on July 18, 1891 – died on November 19, 1947), an American, a daughter of a millionaire from Virginia and a distant relative of United States presidents Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Geraldine's paternal grandfather, Ludwig (or Lajos) Apponyi (born on May 2, 1849 in Baden bei Wien – died on December 11, 1909 in Budapest, Hungary), was a high official in the Habsburg court. Geraldine's mother’s father, John Henry Steuart (1831–1892) was a diplomat who served as American Consul to Antwerp, Belgium.

Geraldine's parents met in Paris, France in 1912 at a dinner in the Austro-Hungarian embassy, and they married in 1914.

When the empire of Austria-Hungary collapsed, the family went to Switzerland. In 1921 they returned to Hungary. However, when Geraldine's father died, her mother decided to take their three children (Geraldine, Virginia born in 1916) and Julius or Gyula; 1923–1946) with her to the resort of Menton in the south of France.

When Geraldine’s mother married a French officer, her father’s family insisted that the children moved to their grandmother’s house in Hungary in order to get their education in Hungary. Their mother agreed. They were sent to the Sacred Heart boarding school in Pressbaum near Vienna. The children spent their vacations in their grandmother’s house and in with their uncles and aunts at their family manor.

On April 27, 1938, in Tirana, Albania, she married King Zog I of the Albanians. She was a Roman Catholic and he was a Muslim. Countess Geraldine had been chosen for King Zog as a possible bride when they were at society balls throughout Europe. Countess Geraldine met King Zog for the first time in Albania and were engaged during this meeting. Geraldine had been working selling postcards (as a Summer job) at the Budapest National Museum where her uncle was the Director. She was known as the "White Rose of Hungary" and was raised to royal status as Princess Geraldine of Albania prior to her wedding.

Zog's rule was cut short with the invasion of Albania by fascist Italy in April 1939. From 1946 she lived in exile in Greece, Turkey, England, Egypt, United States, France, Rhodesia, Spain, and finally in South Africa. King Zog, a chieftain and later the king of all Albanians in 1928, died in Hauts-de-Seine, France, in 1961 at the age of 65.

She had one child:

Crown Prince Leka Zogu (born 1939).

In June of 2002, she was invited by forty members of the Albanian parliament to return from South Africa to live in Tirana. She returned, but continued to assert that her son Leka was the legitimate ruler of Albania.

Apparently as a result of the change in climate, she developed respiratory problems, for which she was treated in a French hospital in August 2002.

She died at the age of 87 in a military hospital in Tirana, after having suffered recurrent pulmonary problems and four heart attacks on October 22, 2002. She was buried by the Central House of the Army and with full honours, including a funeral oration at the cathedral of Shen Pjetri, on October 26, 2002, and interred in the public cemetery of Sharra, Albania at "The Plot of VIPs". Masses of Albanians lined the streets to pay their last respects.

Her Grandson Prince Leka II has posthumously accepted a medal from the Albanian government on behalf of his grandmother's good works on behalf of the people of Albania.

A photograph of Queen Geraldine: [1]