“What will become of the other woman?” – Hedwig Faulkner from Tacoma, Washington

I found this photo in an online shop in Germany. It was taken in Portland, Oregon, and was probably sent to relatives in Germany - like many of the other photos I’ve come across. The sitter in this photo was Hedwig Faulkner. My Instagram community kindly pitched in with suggestions regarding her maiden name:

So let’s take a look at what I could find about Hedwig Faulkner, née Spenbern (also recorded as Spinnheim or Spinnhirn):

Hedwig Sophie Spinnhirn was born on 27 April 1862 in Baden, Germany, the third child of the chemist Richard Spinnhirn and his wife Elise. Hedwig had five siblings. At the age of 20, she made the long journey to New York aboard the Silesia in 1882. None of her family accompanied her on that trip.

By 1891, Hedwig had moved all the way across her new home country to Tacoma, Washington, where she worked in housekeeping at the Annie Wright Seminary. At that time, the seminary had been operating for about seven years and was already one of Tacoma’s notable cultural and educational institutions. It offered a classical education with boarding options, including instruction in English subjects and Latin—at a time when formal education for girls was still relatively rare in the region.

That same year, Hedwig married Alfred Faulkner, an Englishman, in Trinity, Pierce County, Washington. Alfred worked as a streetcar conductor. By 1900, Hedwig had given birth to two sons, Jack and Alfred. Five years later, their daughter Margaret was born. In 1910, Hedwig, her husband, and their three children were living at 406 St. Helena Avenue in Tacoma, Washington.

Then I came across something rather curious in this family’s history. In 1914, Alfred filed for divorce. Barely six months after the divorce was granted, he remarried and started a new family with a young widow he had met at the Western Union Telegraph Office almost a year before the divorce. Today, this might not seem unusual - but when I looked through newspaper archives from the time, the case appears to have been quite extraordinary. It seems that Alfred kept this important development regarding their divorce from his wife. Hedwig was effectively ambushed when the divorce was granted and only then learned of the proceedings.

Hedwig sought justice in court to have the divorce overturned, but her chances - as a woman at the time, with limited legal rights compared to her husband - were slim. The judge ultimately ruled in favour of Alfred.

As one newspaper quoted the judge:

“It is an intensely puzzling case. The whole case revolves about the question: What will become of the other woman? Mrs. Faulkner No. 1 should be protected in some manner. But if I dissolve the divorce, Mr. Faulkner will be a bigamist—and what will become of Mrs. Faulkner No. 2?”

This report from October 23, in The Tacoma Times captures the dilemma of this love triangle all too well:

Hedwig never remarried. In subsequent census records, as well as in her 1942 obituary, she is referred to as Alfred’s widow - likely to preserve appearances, even though we know this was not the case. From 1920 to 1940, she appears to have lived with her son Alfred, who also remained unmarried, and her daughter Margaret.

I find some comfort in seeing that her children stayed by her side after the divorce. Still, I wonder whether they may have sacrificed some of their own happiness in doing so -perhaps stepping into roles left vacant by their father.

Hedwig died on New Year’s Eve 1941 at the age of 75, from long-term endocarditis and kidney disease. Her obituary was published in The News Tribune on January 3, 1942:

And perhaps, in the end, what remains is not the scandal that once surrounded her, but the quiet dignity with which Hedwig lived the rest of her life.

I've added Hedwig's photo to FamilySearch.