LOVED ANOTHER

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4960, 25 February 1937, Page 6

LOVED ANOTHER

TRAGIC MARRIAGE ENDS, GERMAN BEAUTY’S SUICIDE. “I loved my wife passionately—but we never lived as man and wife. She loved another —a man in Germany.” These words, the words of a broken hearted man, reveal the story behind the death of beautiful Elfrieda Jenkins, 21-year-old bride of eight weeks, who threw herself, unclothed except for an overcoat, from the window of her flat in Ryde, Isle of Wight. She was found dying on a gravel path beneath her bedroom window. The inquest was held in secret, but solicitors revealed exclusively to a Daily Sketch reporter Mr. Jenkins’s story of a tragic marriage, of passionate love unrequited. Mr. Basil Jenkins, chief agricultural education officer to the Isle of Wight, in a statement, said:— “I first met my wife in the summer of 1934, when she was staying in the Isle of Wight. We became engaged in March, 1935, and she returned to Germany in April. I paid her fare. She came back to England at the end of July and went to stay at the home of Dr. Raymond, the police surgeon, at Newport. We fixed the marriage for June 24. But she later asked me to postpone it, saying that she had letters from an admirer in Germany. I paid her fare back to Germany on one occasion, and gave her £lO travelling expenses, although she had broken off the engagement. Sorry She Had Left. “She wrote me on July 3, and said she was sorry she had gone. We corresponded until August 24, when she wrote saying she wanted to return to England, and asked me to see her at Christmas. “We continued to correspond until December, 1935, when I went to Wiesbaden and stayed until January 5. We still corresponded, and in January, 1936, I wrote, offering to be engaged again. She replied she would make it up, and asked me to send the ring. We became engaged again on March 24, and she wanted me to go to Germany to marry, but in the end she agreed to come to England in July. “On May 26 I had a letter from a man in Germany explaining that he still loved Elfrieda, but saying that if she wanted to marry me he would make no objection, and he wished me the best of luck. I gave her a chance to break it off, but she told me she would keep her promise—and she eventually came back to London on July 17. Although I could not meet her, she was met by Mrs. Mills, wife of John Mills, the actor, with whom seh stayed from July 17 to 21. I saw her on July 19 and she asked me to marry her at once, because her mother wished it. And I agreed. She came to Newport, and on July 22 we were married at the register office. She refused to live with me as my wife, and we went to Bognor—but not as man and wife. I still thought that the love I would lavish on her would overcome her antipathy. Still Getting Letters. “On August 8 we took up our home at ‘The Grove,’ Ryde, where the tragedy occurred, but still the marriage was not consummated. I discovered on August 20 that she was still receiving letters from an admirer in Germany; and I wrote requesting the man to cease writing to her. She told me then that she loved him and had decided to return to Germany. I protested, and she attempted to get out of the bedroom window. “Again I wrote to the man in Germany asking him to stop writing to my wife, and after that we seemed very happy. We went away for a holiday with my sister, and when we returned after a week’s absence my wife slept upstairs at the flat. “Ultimately she promised that we should live together as man and wife, and on September 17 she came into the room in which I was at work at a desk.” The statement goes on to say that Mr. Jenkins subsequently tapped on the door of his wife’s bedroom, and adds: “I received no reply, and while I was there there was a ring at the front door bell. Miss Carter, who occupies one of the flats in the building, then told me that my wife had been injured.” Mr. Jenkins added: “I afterwards discovered that my wife had, two days before the tragedy, booked tickets to go home to Germany on the Friday—the day on which she was found dying.”