Ida Dalser

Ida Irene Dalser (20 August 1880 – 3 December 1937) was the first wife of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Early life Ida Dalser was born in Sopramonte, a village near Trento (Trient), which was then within the borders of the County of Tyrol in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The daughter of the town mayor, she was sent to Paris to study cosmetic medicine. When she returned, she moved to Milan, where she opened a French-style beauty salon. Marriage and motherhood It is unclear whether Ida Dalser first met young Benito Mussolini in Trento, where he had found his first job as a journalist in 1909, or in Milan, where he had moved soon afterwards. The two started a relationship, and when Mussolini was refused work on the basis of his fervent socialist political activity, she financed him with the revenues of her beautician job. According to some sources, they married in 1914, and in 1915 she had a son, Benito Albino Mussolini. Though Fascist agents sought to erase all traces of the relationship, an edict from the city of Milan ordering Mussolini to make maintenance payments to "his wife Ida Dalser" and their child was overlooked. Persecution and death In 1917, Mussolini came back from the war. His political career accelerated, and in 1919 he went on to found the Fasci italiani di combattimento. In 1921, it became the National Fascist Party, and in the same year, he was also elected to the Chamber of Deputies.