Josephine Bracken

Marie Josephine Leopoldine Bracken (August 9, 1876 – March 14, 1902) was the common-law wife of Philippine nationalist José Rizal during his exile in Dapitan in the province of Zamboanga del Norte in the southern Philippines. In the early morning hours of December 30, 1896, the day of his execution by firing squad, the couple were married in Fort Santiago, the place of his incarceration, following his reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Some sectors dispute the marriage because no records were found regarding the union, discounting the unusual events of that day, even if it was attested by Bracken herself and the officiating priest. Biography Early life Bracken was born in Victoria Barracks in Hong Kong on August 9, 1876, to Irish parents James Bracken, a corporal in the British Army, and Elizabeth Jane McBride, who were married on May 3, 1868, in Belfast, Ireland. After her mother died shortly after childbirth, her father gave her up for adoption. She was taken in by her godfather, the American George Taufer, a blind and fairly well-to-do engineer of the pumping plant of the Hong Kong Fire Department, and his late Portuguese wife. Taufer later remarried another Portuguese woman from Macau, Francesca Spencer, with whom he had another daughter.