Archduchess Assunta of Austria

Archduchess Assunta of Austria ;(10 August 1902 – 24 January 1993) was the youngest daughter of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria and Infanta Blanca of Spain. She was a member of the Tuscan branch of the Imperial House of Habsburg, an Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Tuscany by birth. Born and raised in the twilight years of the Austrian Empire, Archduchess Assunta lived in exile in Barcelona, Spain after the fall of the Habsburg monarchy. She entered religious life in a convent in Barcelona, but was forced to leave it in 1936 due to disturbances during the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, she married Joseph Hopfinger, a Polish doctor. In 1942 the couple emigrated to the United States. Archduchess Assunta and her husband had two daughters, but they divorced in 1950. She moved to San Antonio, Texas where she had a variety of jobs living in anonymity until her death. Early life Archduchess Assunta of Austria was born on 10 August 1902 in Vienna, Austria. She was the eighth of ten children of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria (1863–1931) and his wife Infanta Blanca of Spain (1868–1949). She was given the baptismal names Assunta Alice Ferdinandine Blanca Leopoldina Margarethe Beatrix Raphaela Michaela Philomena. Archduchess Assunta grew up in the last period of the Habsburg monarchy. She was raised with her many brothers and sisters in the various properties owned by her parents enjoying a comfortable and privileged life. Their main residence was the Palais Toskana in the district of Wieden in Viena with Schloss Wilhelminenberg, on the Eastern slopes of the Gallitzinberg, in the Wienerwald Western parts of the Austrian capital as their country state. Vacations were spent near Viareggio, Italy where Infanta Blanca owned, la Tenuata Real, a rural property. Theirs was a multicultural household as Assunta's paternal ancestors had reigned in Austria, Tuscany and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Her maternal family had reigned in Spain, Parma, Modena, Portugal and France. The youngest of five sisters, Archduchess Assunta was raised paired with her sister Archduchess Maria Antonia. Exile Archduchess Assunta was sixteen years old at the fall of Habsburg monarchy following the end of World War I, which marked a sharpdown turn in her family's prosperity. The republican government of Austria confiscated the properties of the Habsburgs, and the family lost their entire fortune.