Thread by @NottmCityOfLit

Today, 107 years ago, Frieda Weekley, neè von Richthofen, married David Herbert Lawrence. It was a relationship borne from passion and scandal, and was tempestuous throughout their 16 years of marriage.

Another woman caught in her husband’s shadow, she deserves a closer look:

Frieda was the daughter of a German Baron (she was distant relative of the other well-known Richtofen, WW1 dogfighter The Red Baron) she moved to England where she married a Professor of Modern Languages, Ernest Weekley, whom she had three children with.

In March 1912, the Professor had invited Lawrence over to lunch and to dispense advice on working abroad. Frieda spoke to the young Lawrence before the meal - and he fell deeply in love.
"You are the most wonderful woman in all England," he would tell her by letter afterwards.

They struck up an affair immediately, meeting furtively.
When she was reluctant to tell her husband about the affair, he forced the issue and sent the Professor a letter stating the love he had for Frieda, and how it was reciprocated. Ernest immediately petitioned for divorce.

They married in a London registry office. Lawrence later wrote he was suffering "with neuralgia in my left eye and my heart in my boots": unlikely to find its way into any Hallmark Cards. Frieda lost custody of her three children.

The Great War broke out a fortnight later.

While desperate to escape England, the War kept them from doing so. Anti-German sentiment was directed at Frieda, and an attempt to see out the war in Zennor, deep in rural Cornwall backfired when they were accused of spying, had their passports removed and thrown out the county

(There is a great play about this episode, which we wrote about a couple of years ago):

nottinghamcityofliterature.com/blog/dh-lawren…

After the war, they began what Lawrence would describe as their ‘savage pilgrimage’: an itinerant life passing through Germany, Italy, Australia, and New Mexico, his health failing, his writing growing in intensity: and Frieda with him all the way. She nicknamed him 'Lorenzo'.

Finally, in 1930, the tuberculosis that had dogged Lawrence his whole life consumed him completely, and he died in Vende, in the South of France.

Freida wrote this sometime afterwards, describing the beautifully gentle goodbye she gave her beloved Lorenzo.

Soon after, she moved back to the ranch in Taos, New Mexico where she had been living beforehand, with her lover (later, third husband) - Angelo Ravagli.

The painter Georgia O'Keefe visited Frieda during her time in Taos. She was amazed at the sheer life of the woman:

"Frieda was very special. I remember very clearly the first time I saw her, standing in a doorway, with her hair all frizzed out, wearing a cheap red calico dress that looked as though she'd just wiped out the frying pan with it. She was not thin, and not young, but...

..there was something radiant and wonderful about her"

She died in Taos in 1956, on her 77th birthday, and buried beside the memorial chapel she had built in Lawrence's name.

Her legacy? As well as inspiring many of Lawrence's characters, perhaps most notably Lady Chatterley, she was also crucial in shaping Lawrence as a writer

She embodied the German idea of 'bejahung': saying 'yes' to life. While Lawrence struggled to break the bonds and manners of the society he was born into, she appeared free: unrepentant, a wild spirit. Without Frieda, there would be no Lawrence.

Those wishing to find out more about this incredible woman should check out either her autobiography: "Not I, But the Wind"; or @annabelabbs superb novelisation of her life "Frieda"
bit.ly/2JHoZVn
Huge thanks to @UoNDHLawrence whose resources we drew on for this thread.