Helena decided to go to South Africa to visit her son's grave so she sailed from Southampton on August 20, 1904, accompanied by her daughter Helena Victoria. In South Africa, the Princess opened the Princess Christian Park and the Princess Christian Home for elderly ladies. Her visit was a great contribution for reconciliation between Boers and Britons after the war. She met succesfully the Boer General Louis Botha, but other Boer general, Jan Smuts, refused to meet her. On Friday September 23, she visited her son's grave. She gave a signed photograph to the florist that always attended the grave and thank his children who used to place flowers there..
Princess Christian founded several charitable asosiations and nursing homes. In 1894 she founded The Princess Christian District Nurses. In 1902 she expanded it with a surgical nursing home dedicated to the memory of her son Christian Victor and the result was the Princess Christian Nursing Home, which began to operate in February 1904. During the Boer War she started the Military Nursing Service and she interviewed every nurse who was sent to South Africa. Because of her royal status she was unable to train herself as a nurse but she did obtain a certificate of proficency in nursing. Between 1890 and 1914 she worked hard for the developement of training programs for nurses in England, specially to work for the very ill and poor. She also established a children's home and an infant nursery and supported a society to prevent the cruelty to children.
In 1906 Prince Christian was employed as a personal emisary of his brother in law, King Edward VII; he represented the King at Kaiser Wilhelm and his wife's silver wedding anniversary in Berlin. He took a letter to the Kaiser from King Edward in which he assured him that England had never had aggresive feelings towards Germany.
The only grandchild of Prince and Princess Christian was a natural daughter of his second son, Prince Albert, named Valerie Marie, who was born in 1900 and who they never met. In 1916, they celebrated the fiftieth anyversay of their marriage. Princess Helena was the only one of Victoria's daughters to reach a golden wedding aniversary. Altough Britain and Germany were at war, Kaiser Wilhelm sent his uncle and aunt a congratulations telegram, routed by Helena's niece, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden, in which he expressed them his "loyal and devoted good wishes".
In 1917, when King George V change the Royal Family's German name of Saxe Coburg Gotha to the British Windsor, Prince Christian dropped the Schleswig Holstein and he and Princess Helena became only Prince and Princess Christian. That same year, on October 28, Prince Christian died peacefully in Schomden House in London.
In the spring of 1923, when she was 77, Princess Helena fell ill with influenza and at the end of May she suffered a heart attack. She died on the morning of Saturday June 9. She was buried in the Albert Memorial Chappel at Windsor.
Bibliography
Packard, Jerrold M.: Victoria's Daughters
Princess Marie Louise: My Memories of Six Reigns
Eilers, Marlene: Queen Victoria's Descendants
Chomet, Seweryn: Helena, Princess reclaimed