Princess Johanna of Hesse and by Rhine

Princess Johanna Marina Eleonore of Hesse and by Rhine (Johanna Marina Eleonore Prinzessin und Landgräfin von Hessen; 20 September 1936 – 14 June 1939) was the third child and only daughter of Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark. She was orphaned at the age of fourteen months when her parents, older brothers Ludwig and Alexander and paternal grandmother Eleonore were killed in a plane crash on their way to a family wedding in London. The remains of her unnamed stillborn baby brother were also found among the wreckage.

After the accident, her paternal uncle Ludwig married his bride Margaret Geddes. The couple adopted Johanna, their orphaned niece, and planned to raise her as their own daughter, but she developed meningitis and died twenty months later at the age of two and a half. Her maternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, said later that the unconscious Johanna so closely resembled her mother at the same age that it felt like losing her daughter Cecilie all over again. Following Johanna's death, she was buried with her parents and brothers at the Rosenhöhe.

Ancestry