DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this story, and I'm just the one lucky enough to pass it along. Now settle in, because this is a tale about a woman who had a habit of walking through doors that hadn't been opened yet — and then holding them wide for everyone who came after. Her name was Hortense Ward.
Born in 1872 in Matagorda County, eldest child of Frederick and M. Louise Sparks — Labauve on her mother's side — she came into this world with what you might call a running start. She attended the Catholic Academy of Nazareth in Victoria as a girl, then went on to teach school for a time in Edna.
While she was in Edna, she married Albert Malsch, and together they had three daughters. That marriage, though, ended in divorce in 1906. Then in 1909, Hortense married William Henry Ward in Houston, and from that point on, Texas would never quite be the same.
In 1910, Hortense Ward sat for the Texas State Bar Examination and passed it, becoming one of the first female attorneys in the state of Texas. She and her husband William formed the law firm of Ward and Ward, and with that, she became the first female attorney to practice law in Houston. Now that alone would be enough for most folks' biographies.
But Hortense was just getting started. She led the campaign for the 1913 Married Woman's Property Law through the Texas Legislature — a law that defined separate and community properties of husband and wife, and removed the disabilities that had kept a married woman from controlling her own separate property. Think on that a moment.
The law itself had to be changed before women could simply hold what was theirs. In 1915, she became the first Texas female attorney admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. And in 1918, she became the first woman to register to vote in Harris County.
Every one of those firsts landed like a stone in still water, sending rings outward that touched people she'd never meet. Then came 1925. Governor Pat Neff appointed Ward as Special Chief Justice of a special all-woman Texas Supreme Court, convened to hear a case involving the Woodmen of the World.
The reason? Qualified male attorneys without ties to that organization simply could not be found. So Texas got, perhaps somewhat accidentally, its first female-led Supreme Court.
It would be fifty-seven years before another woman served on that court. Fifty-seven years. Hortense Ward retired from practicing law in 1939, upon the death of her husband William Henry.
She remained active in ladies clubs and community organizations right up until her death in 1944. She came in through a door nobody had unlocked, and she left it wide open behind her. That's the story the marker tells, and it's one worth the telling.
What the marker says
Hortense Ward was born in 1872 in Matagorda County and was the eldest child of Frederick and M. Louise (Labauve) Sparks. As a child, Hortense attended the Catholic Academy of Nazareth in Victoria and later taught school for a time in Edna. While in Edna she married Albert Malsch; the couple had three daughters, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1906. In 1909, Hortense married William Henry Ward in Houston. in 1910, Hortense Ward passed the Texas State Bar Examination and became one of the first female attorneys in Texas. She joined with her husband to form the law firm of Ward & Ward, becoming the first female attorney to practice in Houston. Hortense led the campaign for passage of the 1913 "Married Woman's Property Law" in the Texas Legislature. The law defined separate and community properties of a husband and wife and removed disabilities of a married woman to control her separate property. Ward achieved many firsts during her career, including being the first Texas female attorney admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915 and the first woman to register to vote in Harris County in 1918. In 1925, Gov. Pat Neff appointed Ward as Special Chief Justice of a special all-woman Texas Supreme Court to hear a case involving the Woodmen of the World, because qualified male attorneys without ties to the organization could not be found. It would be 57 years before another female served on the court. Ward retired from practicing law upon the 1939 death of her husband. She remained active in various ladies clubs and community organizations until her death in 1944.