Born and raised in the twilight years of the Habsburg monarchy, Archduchess Assunta lived in exile in Barcelona, Spain after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.

She entered religious life in a convent in Barcelona, but was forced to leave it in 1936 due to disturbances during the Spanish Civil War.

She was given the baptismal names Assunta Alice Ferdinandine Blanca Leopoldina Margarethe Beatrix Raphaela Michaela Philomena.

Their main residence was the Palais Toskana in the district of Wieden in Viena with Schloss Wilhelminenberg, on the Eastern slopes of the Gallitzinberg, in the Wienerwald Western parts of the Austrian capital as their country estate.

Vacations were spent near Viareggio, Italy where Infanta Blanca owned, la Tenuta Reale, a rural property.

Archduchess Assunta was sixteen years old at the fall of Habsburg monarchy following the end of World War I, which marked a sharpdown turn in her family's prosperity.

[3] Assunta's eldest brothers, Archdukes Rainer and Leopold, remained in Austria and recognized the new republic, while the rest of the family moved to Spain in January 1919.

As her husband was Jewish, they decided to emigrate to the United States with the help of Assunta's brothers Leopold and Franz Joseph, who were living in America and paid for their trip to New York.

She remained very attached to the Catholic Church and held a variety of jobs to support herself and her two young children, including for some time working as a claim clerk.