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Her Majesty Fabiola, Queen-Dowager of the Belgians (Fabiola Wettin, née Doña Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón) is the widow of Baudouin I.
She was born at Madrid, Spain on June 11, 1928, the third daughter of Don Gonzalo Mora Fernández Riera del Olmo, Marquis of Casa Riera, Count of Mora (1887-1957), and his wife, Doña Blanca de Aragon y Carrillo de Albornoz Barroeta-Aldamar y Elio (1892-). She was the sister of Count Jaime de Mora y Aragón, a Spanish actor and jet set playboy.
Doña Fabiola married King Baudouin in Laeken, Belgium, on December 15, 1960. At the ceremony she wore a 1926 Art Deco tiara that had been a gift of the Belgian Empire to her husband's mother, Princess Astrid of Sweden, upon her marriage to King Leopold III of the Belgians. Time magazine, in its September 26, 1960 issue, called Doña Fabiola, who was a hospital nurse at the time of her engagement, "Cinderella Girl" and described her as "an attractive young woman, though no raving beauty" and "the girl who could not catch a man."
The royal couple had no children, as the queen's several pregnancies ended in miscarriage. There are reports, however, that she had a stillborn child in the mid 1960s.
The king died in 1993 and was succeeded by his younger brother, the Prince of Liège, who became King Albert II of the Belgians. Queen Fabiola became the Queen-Dowager.
Admired for her devout Catholicism and involvement in social causes, particularly those related to mental health, children's issues, and women's issues in the Third World, Queen Fabiola is a recipient of the 2001 Ceres Medal, in recognition of her work to promote rural women in developing countries, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The queen also has written children's stories.
Guido Derom, an explorer, named a newly discovered range of Antarctic mountains in her honor in 1961. She also has several varieties of ornamental plants named after her.nl:Fabiola de Mora y Aragón