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Marriage of Lois Booth, Canada’s Richest Heiress, and Danish Prince Goes on Rocks When Permission for Divorce is Sought HEN the royal road to happiness includes a Canadian cattle ranch, a mediaeval castle in Denmark and a $40,000,000 fortune taken from the tall timber between the Ottawa river and Georgian Bay, it is apt to run smack into a big detour sign. This is the painful lesson being learned just now by Prince Erik of Denmark, and the prince’s Canadian-born wife, formerly Lois Frances Booth, of Ottawa, daughter of one of the Dominion's richest men. Their marriage a decade ago was one of those events which put social registerites into a perfect quaver. It united one of the proud est families of Europe with one of the richest families in Canada. It had a pleasantly senti mental angle, too, in that the prince had to renounce his right of succession to the Danish throne because he was marrying a commoner. The prince and his new princess were young, handsome and devoted. The royal road to happiness seemed to stretch out ahead of them without a break. But the three elements mentioned at the beginning of this story were all there, and so the prince and his wife got off the road. And the end of their romance was announced re cently, when it became known at Copenhagen that the two had applied to King Christian of Denmark for a divorce. They applied to the king because, under Danish law, only a decree from the throne can divorce a member of the royal family, and Prince Erik is the king's cousin. And their action signalized the break-up of a match which had drawn the interest of society in both Europe and Canada. The romance really began because Prince Erik has always had a somewhat unprincely desire to be a farmer. Upward of a dozen years ago, the prince decided to gratify that yen in earnest. He sailed to Canada ,travelled to Alberta, and hired out as a farm hand to a dairy farmer near the town of Innisfail. His boss soon found that he was an ener getic and willing worker—not a pampered princeling trying to adopt a pose, but a young man who actually liked farming better than anything else and wanted to make a success of it. The prince not only worked hard, but went out of his way to learn all he could of a farmer's problems. After a year or so of this work, he bought a farm of his own in Alberta and set out to be a farmer on his own hook. His neighbors of that period say that he was a good one, too. He made himself liked, and he seemed glad to have people forget that he was of royal blood. OWEVER, the man who had been accus tomed to royal society did not become rustic. He got into the habit of running over to the famous resort at Banff, in the Rockies, at frequent intervals; and in one of these in tervals Lois Frances Booth happened to be there with her mother. Lois Booth and Prince Erik became ac quainted. Being nice, attractive young propte, both of them, they liked one another. They went riding together, tramped the high moun tain paths, watched the moon come over the mountain . .. which, as anyone will tell you, is very bad medicine indeed unless you are prepared to take the matrimonial conse quences. Prince Erik was not only prepared, he was eager. When Lois Booth returned to her home in Ottawa that fall, he kept thinking about her. That winter, 11 years ago, he made sev eral trips to Ottawa to visit her. Finally he asked her grandfather for her hand. Now Lois Booth’s grandfather was doughty old John Rudolphus Booth, and he was 97 years old and he was also the last man in North America to be awed by the fact that a prince wanted to marry his granddaughter. Grandfather Booth, in fact, had ruled, in his day, over a dominion in which the ancient kingdom of Denmark could have been lost, and the had probably had a good deal more to say about what happened in that dominion than any recent king of Denmark has had to say about the doings in his own realm. Some 80 years before Prince Erik came to Ottawa, Grandfather Booth—who was then an ambitious stripling in his teens—set out from his father's log cabin in eastern Quebec with $9 cash money in his pants and a devout desire to see and lick the world in his heart. He became a lumberman just at the moment when the tremendous forests of Ontario were beginning to fall before the axemen. Before he got through, Grandfather Booth controlled a tremendous stretch of timberland between the Ottawa river and Georgian Bay, on Lake Huron. Over this domain his word was low. One of the finest stands of virgin forest on the planet was his. Much of the land was utterly inaccessible, so Booth built his own railroad, from Ottawa to Parry Sound on Georgian Bay. When he got through with it he had a total length, counting branch lines, of 500 miles, which makes a pretty respectable railroad for one man to build as an adjunct to logging opera tions. Anyway, hard-handed Grandfather Booth had moved in on all that forest and turned it into cash. When he got through he sold his railroad to a trunk line system for $14,000,000. All in all, he retired with what was by common consent estimated to be the greatest fortune in Canada—something better than $40,000,000. This, then, was the prospective father-in law whom Prince Erik tackled. He was 97, but he was hale and hearty, going down to his office under his own power daily, and it took more than the cousin of a king to overawe him. When the prince first remarked that he wanted to marry Lois Booth, Grandfather Booth thundered, “She's too young,” and the prince went back to Alberta. LITTLE later the prince returned to the ir siege. This time affairs went better, until the old lumber king learned that if his grand daughter married the prince, the prince would have to give up both his royal rank and his right of succession to the Danish throne, , “Then he shall not marry my granddaugh ter,” said Grandfather Booth. More negotiations followed. At one stage, it is said, they were handled by the Prince of Wales, who is also an agriculturist in Alberta. At any rate, the Danish court backed down a bit. It was announced that while Prince Erik, in the event of his marriage to Miss Booth, would have to renounce his right of succession, he could retain his title of prince and his wife could be a princess. And since there were eight healthy males between Prince Erik and any chance he might have of actually sitting on the throne, renouncing the right of succession was no actual hardship. So it was arranged. It is reported that when Grandfather Booth finally gave his consent he did it with the words, “Take her and be damned to you.” However, there were no hard feelings; he wrote out a $5,000,000 cheque as a wedding gift. The marriage took place in Ottawa in 1924. Advancing year’s had begun to tell on the bride’s grandfather, and he was unable to be present . But practically everybody else was. It was said that the ceremony and the wed ding breakfast nacked the lumberman‘s bank roll for a cool $100,000. The groom's father, Prince Valdemar of Denmark, uncle of King George of England, was present, with other princes. At any rate, the newlyweds went abroad on a honeymoon, calling on reigning families, and having an elegant time. But before long Prince Erik wanted to get back to his farm. The princess didn't like the idea much, but she went along; however, she did stipulate that if they must live on a farm they could at least find one in a land where it didn’t get as cold as it gets in Alberta every winter. So they sold the Alberta ranch and bought a chicken farm near Pasadena, Calif. It was a very fine place. The house had 30 rooms, the garage contained six autos, and there were even some chicken coops and runways off in the background. The prince went to work eagerly, and for a year devoted himself to his chickens with fine fervor. Then Grandfather Booth died, at 99, leav ing his enormous fortune to Lois and her mother. And the prince was informed that chicken-farming was out. They would go back to Europe, now, and enjoy a bit of that cultivated society to which their position gave them entree. They went to Denmark, where they bought a neat little country place with 60 rooms. Mrs. Booth, the prince's mother-in-law, bought a majestic mediaeval castle a little distance away and moved in.” Two children were born to the prince and princess in Denmark; a girl, known as the Countess Alexandra Rosenberg, now eight, and as a boy, Count Christian Rosenberg, now two. King Christian must rule on their cus tody. 7 They tramped the high paths and watched the moon come over the mountains . . . which is very bad medicine in deed unless you are pre pared to take the matri monial consequences The Countess and Count Christian, children of Prince Erik and his Canadian wife. . . . Left, the late John Rudolphus Booth, the prin cess’ grandfather, Below—the bride and groom at a $100,000 wedding. Prince Erik of Denmark and his bride, the former Lois Frances Booth, photographed just after the marriage ceremony.
Newspaper Details
Winnipeg Tribune
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA
Sat, Feb 02, 1935
Page 31
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
CA 21 Jun 2026
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