What happened to Josephine Bracken When Jose Rizal Died?

Copyright © Jensen DG. Mañebog

Editor’s note: This is the sequel to the author’s well-read article, “ Josephine Bracken: Jose Rizal’s Dear and Unhappy Wife“

When Jose Rizal was tried on the morning of December 26, 1896, his common-law wife, Josephine Bracken, was said to be among the spectators inside the military building, Cuartel de España, along with some newspapermen and many Spaniards (Zaide & Zaide, p. 259).

At about 6 p.m. on the day before Rizal’s execution, Josephine Bracken arrived in Fort Santiago. Rizal called for her and they emotionally talked to each other.

Though some accounts state that Josephine was forbidden from seeing her husband on the fateful day of his martyrdom, the historian Gregorio Zaide wrote that at 5:30 a.m., she and Josefa (Rizal’s sister) came. The couple was said to have embraced for the last time and Rizal gave to Josephine the book ‘Imitation of Christ’ (by Thomas a Kempis) on which he lovingly wrote: “To my dear and unhappy wife, Josephine/ December 30^th, 1896/ Jose Rizal”.

There’s an allegation that either the evening before or in the early morning of Rizal’s day of execution, the couple was married in a ceremony officiated by the priest Vicente Balanguer. Nonetheless, the members of Rizal family themselves seriously doubt the claim as no records were found as regards the wedding. (On Jose Rizal’s death, read: Jose Rizal’s Death (The Last Hours of the Filipino Hero))

Josephine joined the Katipunan
Three days after Rizal’s martyrdom, Josephine hurriedly joined the Katipunan’s forces in Cavite. As Rizal’s widow, she could have easily penetrated the revolutionary group but it was said that “Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo was reluctantly persuaded to admit Josephine into the military ranks, providing her with lessons in shooting and horseback riding” (Alburo).

Aside from serving as an inspiration to the Katipuneros (being Rizal’s wife), she assisted in operating the reloading of jigs for Mauser cartridges at the Imus arsenal under revolutionary General Pantaleón Garcia” (Wikipedia).

Check out: Jose Rizal’s Collaborations with Other Heroes by Jensen DG. Mañebog

She also helped in taking care of the sick and wounded. In fact, ”it was her suggestion to start a field hospital in the casa hacienda of Tejeros” (Alburo). When Imus became under threat of recapture, Bracken made her way through bushes and mud to the forces in Maragondon where she witnessed the Tejeros Convention on March 22, 1897.

When the enemies captured San Francisco de Malabon, “Josephine, accompanied by her brother-in-law Gen. Paciano Rizal, left for Bay, Laguna, passing through forests and over mountains, many times barefoot and riding on a carabao” (Alburo).

While in Bay, Josephine was summoned by the Spanish governor general, Camilo Polavieja. She was given the options of leaving the country or be subjected to torture and imprisonment. Owing however to Mr. Taufer’s American citizenship, she could not be compulsorily banished, though Josephine eventually left for Hong Kong in May 1897 “upon the advice of the American consul in Manila” (Wikipedia).

Josephine’s second husband
Upon returning to Hong Kong, Josephine went back to Taufer’s house. She petitioned for her share of Rizal’s library in Hong Kong, which was under the guardianship of Jose Maria Basa. Though sympathetic to her, Basa could not grant her request because the Rizals, especially Doña Teodora, were contesting the petition and Josephine had no proof that she was legally married to Jose.

After her foster father’s death, she married the Philippine-born mestizo Vicente Abad y Recio from Cebu. Some sources introduce Bracken’s second husband as the son of a Hong Kong tabacalera company owner whereas others present him as one of the employees of Tabacalera.

It was said that Hong Kong-based Julio Llorente, a Cebuano friend of Rizal, introduced Abad to Bracken. Llorente was also the one who wrote the letter of introduction to Rizal carried by Josephine and Taufer when they arrived in Dapitan in 1895.

Llorente must have referred his co-Cebuano Abad to Josephine to be her student in English. As a businessman in Hong Kong, Abad had to learn English. Having been to the Philippines and knowing Spanish, Josephine was thus an ideal tutor for him.

The two fell for each other and after a short courtship got married on December 15, 1898. Some narrations state that the couple moved to the Philippines in May 1899 while others say that the family returned to Manila a year after the couple’s child was born.

Josephine gave birth to their daughter, Dolores, on April 17, 1900.After some months in Manila, they moved and settled in Cebu City. The place, by then, was already under the control of the Americans and Julio Llorente himself even became Cebu governor under the American rule. Abad returned to Cebu to open the first bicycle store and rental in the place, a business which was said to have blossomed.

Tutoring the future president, Sergio Osmeña
While Abad was managing the bicycle business, Josephine was also earning in the place by using it as study center. This is proved by the advertisement placed in the newspaper ‘El Pueblo’ in April 1900, which posted: “Josephine Bracken (sic) de Abad, Profesora de Lenguas living near Plaza Rizal, is giving lessons in English and German in her residence.”

Their place was on Magallanes and Burgos Streets, just a stone’s throw away from Basilica del Santo Niño and the present-day Cebu City Hall. There, Josephine had taught the young Sergio Osmeña y Suico (better known as Sergio Osmeña, Sr.) who later became the 4th President of the Philippines (1944 to 1946).

Osmeña was said to have learned at least two things in the place: paddling a bike and the English language. However, Osmeña’s biographer, Vicente Albano Pacis, doubts that the first Visayan to become Philippine president learned much from Bracken (Alburo).

Bracken’s little experience as English tutor in Manila and Cebu (and most probably her connection to the national hero and Llorente) made it easier for her to get a more steady occupation “as public school teacher at the recommendation of [a certain] Dr. David Barrows” (Alburo). The poor condition of her health nonetheless precluded her to work further. To seek a cure for her tuberculosis, she returned to Hong Kong once again.

Death and interment
The rapid advancement of Josephine’s terminal tuberculosis of the larynx took its toll on her body and also drained her family’s financial resources. She was confined in St. Francis Hospital, a Catholic charitable institution in Hong Kong.

Msgr. Spada, the Vicar General in Hong Kong who visited her in the hospital, had this to say about the dying Josephine: “The last time I saw Mrs. Rizal, I was stricken with pity. She was broken down; yes, very much broken down both in health and in spirit. I deemed it my first duty to comfort her and revive her spirit, but my efforts were futile. It was a losing fight. Poor woman, she had lost all hope, and with it, her faith in humanity.” (“Final Rest”)

On the eve of March 14-15, 1902, Bracken restfully died in the land where she was born. Because of the contagiousness of her ailment, she was immediately buried the next day at the Happy Valley Cemetery, not too far from the grave of her mother(Grave No. 4258) in the Military Section. A small news item on page 4 of Hong Kong’s ‘China Mail’ reported that she died at “No. 87, Praya East, where she had been residing for some time”.

The funeral, the news item added, was “attended by a number of prominent Filipinos.” Her husband who hastily arrived in Hong Kong was said to have witnessed the closing of his wife’s grave. Unfortunately, Vicente failed to indicate to any relative the exact location of Bracken’s tomb, as he himself died the following year, of the same disease, and buried in the same cemetery.

However, the idea that Josephine was buried in a pauper’s grave in Hong Kong was fervidly refuted later by her husband’s family. The Abad family could easily afford a decent burial for Josephine, especially with her brother-in-law Jose also in Hong Kong, so argued Dolores, Vicente Abad’s daughter by Bracken (Alburo).

Bracken’s daughter
Since her mother died when she was about to turn 2, Dolores Bracken Abad did not have vivid memories of Josephine. The tales she knew about her mother were only those related to her by Josephine’s in-laws. Remember that she also had no father to tell her about her mom for he himself died a year after Josephine’s demise.

Dolores married Antonio Mina of Ilocos. (Though Dolores was not a fruit of Rizal-Josephine’s union, this Ilocano could legitimately boast that he married the only sibling [half-sister] of Jose Rizal’s son).  

Josephine’s daughter died on December 9, 1987 and was survived by four children. Macario Ofilada, Dolores’ grandson wrote the first full biography of Josephine Bracken, ‘Errante Golondrina’.

Check out: Jose Rizal’s Collaborations with Other Heroes by Jensen DG. Mañebog

Rizal family’s dislike of Bracken
It is almost a historical fact that the Rizal family, except for Narcisa (and possibly Choleng and Paciano), had never liked Jose’s ‘dear unhappy wife’. One may argue that even after the passing of both Jose and Josephine, her memory was not that generously welcomed in the Rizal clan.

One friend jokingly concluded, in hindsight, that Josephine was a sort of ‘bad omen’ (if ever you believe in that) and exclaimed, “Malas siya sa buhay ni Rizal.” His ‘theory’ he based on the observation that almost everyone who had become connected to Josephine died young—her own mother (who died shortly after giving birth to her), her real father, her Portuguese step mother, Jose Rizal, Mr. Taufer, and his second husband Vicente Abad.

But this argument, which is an instance of a ‘false cause fallacy’, is most likely not the reason the Rizal family did not like Bracken.

There was an explicit declaration that the Rizals were suspicious that she was a spy for the friars and regarded her as “threat to Rizal’s security.” (Bantug)

Remember that when Bracken and Taufer arrived in Dapitan in 1895, they were with a certain Manuela Orlac. It was Orlac’s being a mistress of a friar which caused some of Jose’s sisters to presume that Josephine had come as friars’ undercover. 

While staying with Narcisa’s family in Binondo, Bracken would frequently leave the house and return after some hours. To find out where she was going, the Rizal sisters asked someone to trail and keep an eye on her. One afternoon, it was discovered that she had gone to the archbishop’s place. Josephine later confessed that she had indeed gone to see the church official to beg for Rizal’s freedom.

The ‘spy-charge’ against Bracken was never proved as it was never true. But even then, the Rizal family could not be persuaded to like her, especially that her union with Jose was not sanctioned by the Church. The family’s antipathy toward her was thus understandable as many were indeed scandalized by the couple’s live-in relationship. As a result, many distasteful stories about the couple were also passed around by gossips.

Far from being selfish though, Bracken thought of leaving Dapitan to save Rizal from further humiliation. In fact, she even selflessly induced Rizal to get married should he find someone else in Spain. While Rizal was waiting for a ship which would bring him to his medical mission in Cuba, Josephine wrote him this self-sacrificing unedited letter dated August 13, 1896:

If you go to Spain, you see any one of your fancy you better marry her but, dear, heare me, better marry than to live like we have been doing. I am not ashamed to let people know my life with you but as your dear Sisters are ashamed I think you had better get married to some one else. Your sister Narcisa and your Father, they are very good and kind to me.

Read Also:
The Interesting Tales of the Jose Rizal Family by Jensen DG. Mañebog

Rizal’s ‘dulce estranjera’
As a testament of his love for her, Jose Rizal made use of his common-law wife as a model and inspiration in at least two of his artworks: a carving of her head and shoulder (side view) and a plaster statue of her reclining.
When Josephine (temporarily) left Dapitan to accompany Taufer to Manila, Rizal gave her this short poem:

“A Josefina”
Josephine
Who to these shores came,
Searching for a home, a nest,
Like the wandering swallows,
If your fate guides you
To Shanghai, China, or Japan,
Forget not that on these shores
A heart beats for you.

In Rizal’s last and greatest poem posthumously entitled “Mi Ultimo Adios”, there’s a line which reads, “Adios, dulce estranjera, mi amiga, mi alegria” which is now commonly translated, “Farewell, sweet foreigner, my darling, my delight!” As the line is conventionally accepted as Rizal’s farewell to his “dear unhappy wife,” Josephine Bracken had thus earned the historical moniker, “Rizal’s dulce estranjera (sweet foreigner).”

Josephine, for his part, had also immortalized her affection for Rizal through her letters with which she consoled him when he was on his way to Cuba and during his prison days.

Some of her letters involved matters like sending him his clothing and the foods he loved like a hundred sweet santoles, lansones, and cheese. But Bracken’s (unedited) letter dated August 13, 1896 stands out as it manifests the purity of her love to our national hero:

I am always sorry, thinking of you. Oh, dear, how I miss you, I will always be good and faithful to you, and also do good to my companions so that the good God will bring you back to me.

I will try all my best to be good to your family, especially to your dear old Parents: “the hands that we cannot cut, lift it up and kiss it, or adore the hand that gives the blow.” How it made the tears flew in my eyes when I read those few lines of you. Say, darling, say it makes me think of our dear old hut in Dapitan and the many sweet ours we have passed their.

Love, I will love you ever; love, I will leave thee never; ever to me precious to thee; never to part, heart bound to heart, or ever to say goodbye.

So, my darling, receive many warm Affection and love from your ever faithfull and true till death.

–Josephine Bracken

Read: The Colorful Love Affairs of Dr. Jose Rizal by Jensen DG. Mañebog

Today, there’s a small street somewhere in Project 4, Quezon City which is named in the memory of Rizal’s “dear unhappy wife”.  

*To know more about Rizal (his girlfriends, etc.), search here:

Copyright © 2014 by Jensen DG. Mañebog

Read the prequel to this article: “ Josephine Bracken: Jose Rizal’s Dear and Unhappy Wife“

Check Out: The Colorful Love Affairs of Dr. Jose Rizal by Jensen DG. Mañebog