The Revealing Truth Of Tim Walz's Wife You May Not Know
She's been working behind the scenes in government for years, but what do we really know about Tim Walz's wife? Let's take a closer look at her career and family.
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00:00She's been working behind the scenes in government for years, but what do we really know about
00:05Tim Walz's wife? Let's take a closer look at her career and family.
00:09When Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, was announced as Vice President Kamala Harris'
00:13running mate for the 2024 presidential election, he was immediately thrust into the national
00:19spotlight. And a lot of attention has also turned to his family, particularly his wife,
00:24Gwen Walz.
00:25She was born Gwen Whipple in Glencoe, Minnesota, and has been a teacher for most of her adult
00:34life. Her teaching career took her to Nebraska, where she met Tim. They were co-workers who
00:38taught at the same school but specialized in different subjects. Gwen taught English
00:42and Tim taught social studies. They got married in 1994 and, two years later, they moved to
00:48her home state of Minnesota, both teaching at Mankato West High School. Together, they
00:53took students on annual field trips to China, and throughout her career, Gwen has professed
00:58a passion for education.
00:59Although not much is known about their early relationship, Tim's message on Facebook for
01:04Gwen's birthday in 2018 gave credit to one of Gwen's sisters, She Has Three, for helping
01:09get them together. He wrote,
01:10"'Happy birthday to my amazing wife, Gwen. I'm so lucky your sister convinced you to
01:15go out with me.'"
01:16Gwen worked in a variety of schools and eventually moved up from being a teacher to school administrator
01:21at Mankato Area Public Schools. She's also long been a proponent of education reform
01:26and prison reform.
01:28Gwen's official biography on the Minnesota government website describes her dedication
01:32to providing prisoners with higher education and emphasized that she sees them simply as
01:37students. One thing she believes is possible with better education in prisons is the decrease
01:41of repeat offenders. Gwen also worked to help felons who have completed their sentences
01:46receive the ability to vote, a cause she's been vocal about.
01:50"'Until we are all equal and have equality, none of us are equal and have equality."
01:58Her work came to fruition in 2023, when parolees and felons finished with their sentences in
02:03Minnesota were granted the right to vote. It's apparently all par for the course for
02:07Minnesota's first lady.
02:09Helping people is something Gwen has always strived to do. Her biography says,
02:13Throughout her life, Gwen has been working passionately to build a more just and equitable
02:18world, from teaching at prisons and promoting criminal justice reform to advocating for
02:22the LGBTQ movement. Gwen's desire to learn from and work with others to advance meaningful
02:27change is her guiding principle.
02:29When Tim became governor in 2018, Gwen and Tim Walls moved to St. Paul, where Gwen became
02:34the first Minnesotan first lady to have an office at the Capitol. They also have two
02:39children named Hope and Gus. The former's name is particularly significant, as Gwen
02:43and Tim struggled to conceive their first child. Tim has explained that after seven
02:48years of IVF, he got a phone call from Gwen while she was crying and assumed it didn't
02:52work again, only to finally hear the amazing news that the treatment had worked.
02:56"'So it wasn't by chance that when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her
03:01Hope."
03:02Gwen gave a glimpse into her life as a mom in a 2019 interview with Twin Cities PBS.
03:07She gave them a tour of her home office, which was filled with family mementos. In one sweet
03:12moment, she pointed to a pair of dirty soccer cleats on a shelf, explaining that she'd dug
03:16them out of the trash after Hope threw them out following her soccer team losing the final
03:20game of the season.
03:21"'She took her cleats off and she dropped them in the garbage can, and I couldn't bear
03:27it, you know, it was this symbolic moment.'"
03:28It's clear that family is important to Tim and Gwen Walls, and if Kamala Harris takes
03:33the vote in the 2024 election, we're likely to see a whole lot more of them.
03:42For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org or call 1-800-637-8443.