Houston, Harris County
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.