Ruth Simon
Gertrude Schimmel
and
Felicia Shpritzer
Schimmel has just passed at 96! As the NY Times states:
Like all the female members of the department, Ms. Schimmel was assigned to the Bureau of Policewomen when she graduated from the Police Academy. In her early years with the department, her son said, she took part in undercover work breaking up gambling operations. She later joined the Youth Aid Division, which found temporary shelter for children whose parents were ill or otherwise unable to care for them. It was the type of assignment given to women to keep them from confrontations with criminals.
Frankly the Youth Division was in some ways more difficult than others. The pair would show up at apartments with butchered parents, picking up the terrified children and spending long hours finding homes. Tracking down wandering children, many who had fallen in with the bad set if you will, seeing lives not even started destroyed before a spark of adulthood. The damage done to children before their time could take a toll.
My father had been proud that his partners all managed to succeed in a profession that was male dominated. As the Times noted:
Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy maintained that women lacked the physical strength and endurance to become sergeants, but the city lost the court battle.
As I recall my father saw these as equal colleagues, never as inferior weaklings. In fact the moral fiber was more critical than the physical, meaning that they had to help the children try to take first steps of regaining their lives, something that the rough and tumble men could not.
I remember all three, I recall the tales of their adventures, never a sharp word, always a team. The classic tale was when Ruthie finally admitted to my father many years latter that she never had bullets, she did not like guns!
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