Marie Feodorovna and her grandchildren

[Katia]

Besides, Marie Feodorovna and Alexandra Feodorovna were never too close, and their distant relationship itself was enough to alienate the relationship between the grandmother and the grandchildren from each other. Alix wanted also to maintain very close terms to her children, not wanting anybody to come between her and them.  - Marie Fedorovna could nevertheless meet OTMA regulary during the sunday dinners where her daughter Olga Alexandrovna brought the girls. In her letters to Nicholas, she seems to be a solicitous grandmother, but she didn't meet OTMAA as often as Ksenia's children, who became closer to her.

[Maria_Romanova]

I have read somewhere that MF favored Alexei.

[AlexeiLVR]

If I was MF then i would favorize (dono if thats a word) OTMA and especialy Alexei! lol! And not Xenias children! he he he!

And Maria Nicolaievna was not ugly, I think she was the prettiest!

[Maria_Romanov_fan]

I have read somewhere that MF favored Alexei.

I think you got your A's mixed up, or maybe not ...
I heard that she favored Anastasia, but like hikaru said, she could be true. MF might have favored Alexei because of his future political rank.

[Maria_Romanov_fan]

I read somewhere MF commenting on Maria's lips being too thick, thus making her ugly, or something like that.

It's hard to belive that any grandmother would say that about her granddaughter! Again, the Romanovs were not the regular normal family ...

[QueenEna1887]

Does anyone have a photos of MF with all of her grandchildren combining the children of Nicholas and his sister Xenia?
Does anyone have a photo of MF holding Anastasia as a baby?

[lexi4]

I would imagine that age, her son abdicating the throne, revolution and exile mellowed her a lot.

[BobAtchison]

Isn't it true that Marie didn't see much of Nicholas's and Alix's children during the war?  Their Aunt Olga certainly saw very little of them because of the war and her duties and she seems to have genuinely loved them.

None of the children seem to have been on intimate terms with their grandmother... but I could be wrong here - any opinions?

[Speedycat]

 :)MF with Olga in 1908.................

[divine_grace]

Hey there speedycat, where did you get that picture? Thank you for posting it. I've never seen it before.

[Speedycat]

The  photo is from the lovely (but unfortunately no longer published) "Royalty Digest" magazine by Paul Minet.  It has so many interesting and before-unseen photos.  I'm currently in the process of maxing-out my credit card ordering all the back issues I do not have to complete my collection

P.S.  The original photo does not have those nasty yellow and blue lines running through it.  That is my ancient scanner.

[Fay]

Very nice pic! Does anyone have picture of MF with other grandchildren?

[Lanie]

I've got another version of the one of Maria F. with Olga, but it's a photo copy and therefore not all that great a scan!  Now I need to invest in some of those Royalty Digest magazines...!

[Genevieve]

Wow, so glad that I am back on line.   Never saw that
pictue of Olga and her Grandmother.   Just got a new computer due to a nasty worm.   That picture is just
heart touching.

[Sarai_Porretta]

None of the children seem to have been on intimate terms with their grandmother... but I could be wrong here - any opinions?

I agree that they didn't have a very close relationship with their grandmother. Too bad, since she was really the only grandparent they had, as all the others had died before they were born. Their aunt Olga recalls that during their visits to their grandmother, they all did their best to behave properly and politely, and only when they left her presence could they really relax and be themselves. So I take it she was not the type of grandmother they could really joke or play around with. They had more of a formal and distant relationship.