Princess Louise of Prussia in Baden, and everyone spoke with affectionate pride of their grand duke and duchess in Constance, where the couple had a summer residence. Louise was a great friend of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, her sister-in-law's younger sister; i.e., Alice was the sister of Victoria, Louise's brother Frederick's wife, both sisters being daughters of Queen Victoria. The two often visited each other. In Queen Victoria's letters, she and Frederick were always referred to with pleasure or sympathy as "good Fritz and Louise of Baden". Though friends as young girls, Louise and her sister-in-law Victoria, Princess Royal ("Vicky") always had a
Princess Helena of the United Kingdom favourite childhood occupations. However, Helena became a middle daughter following the birth of Princess Louise in 1848, and her abilities were overshadowed by her more artistic sisters. Helena's father, Prince Albert, died on 14 December 1861. The Queen was devastated, and ordered her household, along with her daughters, to move from Windsor to Osborne House, the Queen's Isle of Wight residence. Helena's grief was also profound, and she wrote to a friend a month later: "What we have lost nothing can ever replace, and our grief is "most, most" bitter ... I adored Papa, I loved him more than anything