Assumpta Alice von Österreich-Toskana

Asunta von Österreich-Toskana was born on August 10, 1902, in Vienna as the eighth of ten children of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria and Infanta Blanca of Bourbon. At her baptism, she received the names Asunta Alicia Fernandina Blanca Leopoldina Margarita Beatriz Rafaela Micaela Filomena. She belonged to the Tuscan branch of the House of Habsburg and, by birth, held the rank of Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Tuscany. Asunta grew up during the final years of the Habsburg monarchy in a large, affluent, and cosmopolitan family. The family’s principal residence was the Palais Toscana in Vienna’s Wieden district, while Schloss Wilhelminenberg served as their country home. They often spent their holidays at Tenuata Real, a country estate near Viareggio owned by Asunta’s mother. Her family background united several European ruling houses: her father’s ancestors had reigned in Austria, Tuscany, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, while her mother’s family was connected with Spain, Parma, Modena, Portugal, and France. As the youngest of five sisters, Asunta was especially close to her sister Maria Antonia, who was three years older; the two shared their education and childhood games. The First World War and the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy radically changed Asunta’s life. She was sixteen when the empire collapsed. Austria’s republican government confiscated the Habsburgs’ properties, leaving the family without its fortune and former standard of living. Asunta’s older brothers Raniero and Leopold remained in Austria and recognized the new republic. The rest of the family moved to Spain in January 1919 and settled in Barcelona, where they lived far more modestly than before. In Barcelona, Asunta increasingly devoted herself to religion. Although her parents were practicing Catholics, they became concerned about the intensity of their youngest daughter’s religious fervor. Her sister Maria Antonia had eventually abandoned her wish to become a nun and married an impoverished Mallorcan aristocrat. Asunta, however, remained determined to take religious vows. While still a minor, she even ran away aboard a ship bound for South America, but she was returned to her parents. With their consent, she eventually entered the Santa Teresa convent in Tortosa, near Barcelona. The Spanish Civil War brought this path to an end. The convent was attacked, and the nuns were forced to flee for their lives. Because Asunta had not yet taken her final vows, she was permitted to leave the order. She returned to her mother and unmarried siblings, who were living in Viareggio at the time. In the late 1930s, one of her brothers introduced her to Joseph Hopfinger, a Polish Jewish doctor. Her mother disapproved of the relationship, but Asunta and Hopfinger married in September 1939 in Ouchy, Switzerland. Shortly after the wedding, Hopfinger entered military service. He was demobilized after the fall of France, and the couple later reunited in London before moving to Barcelona. Their first daughter, Maria Teresa, was born there in December 1940. Nazi persecution of the Jews then forced the family to leave Europe. Hopfinger’s parents also died after their property was located in a resource-rich region that was occupied by the Russians at the time. Because Hopfinger was Jewish, Asunta and her husband decided to emigrate to the United States with their daughter. Asunta’s brothers Leopold and Franz Josef, who lived there, supported them and paid for their journey to New York. In New York, Joseph Hopfinger worked as a doctor. Their second daughter, Julieta Isabel Maria Asunta, was born in 1942. The marriage, however, proved unhappy. Hopfinger had expected that, as the husband of a European princess, he would eventually inherit a substantial fortune from his wife. When this expectation was not fulfilled, he became disillusioned with the marriage. The couple separated after the war, and their divorce became final on July 25, 1950. After the separation, Asunta moved with her daughters to San Antonio, Texas, where she spent the rest of her life. She remained closely connected to the Catholic Church and held various jobs to support herself and her children, at one point working in claims administration. Her daughter Maria Teresa first married Edward Joseph Hetsko Jr. in 1961 and then Anatole Ferlet in 1969; she had two children. Julieta married five times and had three children. Asunta later traveled to Europe once more to visit her surviving siblings. She died in San Antonio on January 24, 1993, at the age of ninety.