Cradle Fit for a Prince: Canadian Family’s Heirloom Linked to Royal Lineage
With a couple of old photographs, a name, and a lot of determination, an Ontario man uncovered a family antique’s royal origin.
Scott Ackerman of Orillia, Ontario, always knew the antique wooden cradle his children and grandchildren slept in was special, but he wanted to learn more of its story. Since he obtained it, along with other antiques, when his parents sold their farm, he didn’t know how old it was or where it came from. He certainly hadn’t expected it would connect him to a royal family.
Ackerman told Canadian news site CollingwoodToday that, when he searched through his father’s belongings, he found some old books with dedications inscribed to Maria Leiningen. Along with them, he found two undated photographs of a baby lying in a cradle. He didn’t recognize the baby, but the cradle was unmistakably his.
“Leiningen” was a familiar name to Ackerman. There was a Leiningen family in Oakville, where his family lived when he was a child. But he didn’t know Maria Leiningen, so he went online with his son’s help and contacted every Maria Leiningen he could find on Facebook.
It took several months to hear back. Finally, Ackerman received a message from a 94-year-old woman named Maria in New Jersey, who said her husband was Hermann Leiningen, son of Prince Karl Leiningen.
Prince Karl Leiningen was born in Germany in 1928 and married Princess Marie Louise of Bulgaria in 1957. Early in their marriage, they moved to Canada and had two children, including Hermann Leiningen. This was the Leiningen family Ackerman remembered from Oakville.
Prince Karl was a direct descendant of Queen Victoria and Emperor Alexander II of Russia. Although the Leiningen family no longer holds sovereignty, it is one of the wealthiest German noble families; about the time of Prince Karl’s wedding, the family was valued at about $1.5 billion. He and Princess Marie Louise divorced in 1968. Marie Louise moved to the United States with their sons, and Karl later moved to Israel.
Scott Ackerman sent Maria Leiningen pictures of the cradle and the inscribed books, plus copies of the photographs he had found. She confirmed that the cradle had belonged to her family. Ackerman speculated that Prince Karl had given it to his father, a woodworker, to refinish. The family must have moved away before the project was completed. The cradle was in poor condition when Ackerman received it; he had repaired it before using it for his children.
Ackerman is in contact with the Leiningen family and intends to give them the cradle. “It’s a heritage item of theirs,” he said to CollingwoodToday.
The books inscribed to Maria Leiningen are connected to another German royal family. They were written by Prince Hubertus zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg (1906-1984). The house of Loewenstein-Wertheim formerly ruled the German county of the same name, which has since become the separate towns of Loewenstein and Wertheim. Prince Lowenstein left Germany shortly after Hitler came to power. A historian and author, he promoted anti-fascism in the United States and returned to Germany after the end of World War II to support a democratic government.
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