Saturday, 15 October 2011
At the road’s end: Count Conradin of Castell-Rüdenhausen (1933-2011), cousin of King Carl Gustaf
Yesterday the funeral of Count Conradin of Castell-Rüdenhausen, a first cousin of the King of Sweden, was held in Ingå Church in Finland. The Count died on 1 October, some days before his 78th birthday. Born in Berlin on 10 October 1933, His Illustrious Highness Count Conradin Friedrich of Castell-Rüdenhausen was the second of three children born to Princess Caroline-Mathilde (Calma) of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in her first marriage to Count Friedrich-Wolfgang of Castell-Rüdenhausen. The parents divorced in 1938 and the father was killed when taking part in German air attacks on Britain in June 1940. Conradin was thus a nephew of Princess Sibylla of Sweden. He moved to Finland to study horticulture and there he met Märta Lönegren, whom he married on 6 July 1961. The couple, who were thus able to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary earlier this year, were the parents of a daughter, Anne-Charlotte, and a son, named Carl-Eduard for his paternal great-grandfather, who lives in Denmark. The late Count stayed in touch with his cousin King Carl Gustaf, but lead a private life at Ingå, where the family ran a plant nursery.
The family's gardening enterprise is Hagalandet in Inkoo, Finland:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hagalandet.fi/svenskahem.html
and currently is driven by Anne-Charlotte Castell-Rappu, daughter of the late count.
Count Conradin had a partial paralysis in about 1980 which afflicted him the last 30 years, making some use of wheelchair necessary.
Count Conradin disliked enormously any publicity and practically fled the Swedish court circles in about 1960. As he is now deceased, his remaining family in Inkoo (widow Märta and their progeny) have now been a bit more welcoming of media.
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