Godfrey G. Goodwin

Godfrey Gummer Goodwin was a U.S. representative from Minnesota.

Early life

Goodwin was born Alfred Gustafson near St. Peter, Minnesota, to a single mother, Cecilia Carlson, a native of Sweden. They moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1882, where he took the name Godfrey Gummer Goodwin. He attended public schools and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School at Minneapolis in 1896. He was admitted to the bar in 1896 and commenced practice in Cambridge, Minnesota.
Goodwin married Geneva Edwina Josephina Gouldberg on June 5, 1905. He served as president of the Board of Education in Cambridge from 1914 to 1917.

Goodwin was prosecuting attorney of Isanti County from 1898 to 1907. He was elected to the position again in November 1913, and served until February 15, 1925, when he resigned following his election to Congress.
Goodwin was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Minnesota's 10th congressional district and serving from March 4, 1925, until his death in 1933. After his congressional district was eliminated, he failed to receive nomination to the at-large Minnesota delegation in 1932. He plunged to his death from a window of the Hotel Driscoll in Washington, D.C., on February 16, 1933, only two weeks before the end of his final term. It is not known whether Goodwin intended to commit suicide or if the fall was an accident. He is interred in Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.