Singing the praises of Canada’s first policewomen
Two women find their way in a man’s world in the early 1900s
At the beginning of 20th century in Vancouver, booze was flowing, prostitution was prospering and Christian ladies were complaining. Various church groups demanded more action from the police.
That outcry forced the Vancouver Police Department to take action and create the Women’s Division in 1912.
The first female police hires in Vancouver, the first in all of Canada actually, were Lurancy Harris, 48, and 34-year-old Minnie Miller. The pair were sworn in as fourthclass constables, the lowest rank in the department. They earned $80 a month.
Harris and Miller were given “full police powers.” Those three words are housed inside quotation marks because for Harris and Miller “full police powers” meant no uniform and no weapons. They also got paid a fraction of what their male counterparts earned.
The uniforms for policewomen wouldn’t come for another 35 years and firearms were finally issued six decades later when women were assigned to regular patrol duties, like their male counterparts.
It’s the story of Harris and Miller that award-winning Vancouver playwright Sally Stubbs (Wreckage, Herr Beckmann’s People) used to inspire her play And Bella Sang With Us. The play opens the 2017 Firehall Arts Centre season on Jan. 4.
“They worked on the streets, the bars, the pool halls and the beaches,” said Stubbs. “Going places where women could get in trouble. That was the idea. They were hired to deal with the female morality issue, which had become a big deal in this sort of booming resourcebased town.”
Stubbs discovered these women back in 2010 when she was doing research for another play. Harris and Miller stood out like, well, the only two women in a large group of men.
Stubbs says the information on the pair was thin and some of it was contradictory. To create her fictionalized story, the playwright drew from many sources, including police records, clippings and the book Ladies of the Night: The Recollections of a Pioneer Canadian Policewoman by Margaret Gilkes. It’s here that Stubbs found the story of a young female officer that calmed a mentally ill, violent female inmate by singing with her.
“I thought it was such an interesting thing that it didn’t go to violence, it went to song. It was just so quirky and wonderful,” said Stubbs. “I wondered then, what kind of different kinds of tactics did women have to employ?”
Directed by Sarah Rodgers and starring Leanna Brodie and Sarah Louise Turner as Harris and Miller, respectively, the play is a story about relationships, partnerships and support, and of course human rights and equality.
“They are so incredibly inspiring,” said Stubbs about the two women. “They were battling issues that are still going on today. There is such a small percentage of women in any vocation that are rising to the top,” added Stubbs. “It is a story of two women finding their way in a man’s world, essentially a world unused to women in authority and finding their way to one another and friendship — and finding the courage to stay with it. It’s about women on the edges too.”
Reading this, Vancouver theatregoers may find this story familiar and correctly so. Back in 2012 Firehall mounted Kid Gloves by Stubbs. That play also focused on Harris and Miller, but it fell flat.
Despite the huge letdown — along with plenty of self-loathing and second-guessing — Stubbs finally decided that this was too important a story to lock away.
“It was huge disappointment for me and the Firehall, and we all felt responsible in our own ways,” said Stubbs, who feels the play was rushed to the stage.
“I wondered, ‘Should I be doing this,? then I thought, ‘Nuts to that,’ there is a really great story here. It is based on some amazing women who are integral to our history — women very few people know about. I just thought the story is worth it. The play is worth it. So I decided to tackle it again.” So tackle it, she did. Rewritten, the play got workshopped in Calgary and Vancouver before getting a slot at this past fall’s Fringe.
It was a Pick of the Fringe and played to sold out houses.
That success calmed Stubbs’ nerves and solidified the play’s future.
“It felt huge to me,” said Stubbs about the play’s Fringe experience. “I feel like that giant stone has been lifted from my shoulders.”
“They worked on the streets, the bars, the pool halls and the beaches.” — Sally Stubbs