Mrs. Nettie (Jay) Yaw
Bainbridge Republican, September 13, 1917
The Binghamton Press of Sept. 5, published a picture and sketch of Mrs. Nettie Yaw, who is a deputy sheriff in California and who is the niece of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Phinney of Bainbridge [Chenango Co., NY]. The article says:
Mrs. Nettie Yaw of Los Angeles county bears the distinction of being the only woman deputy sheriff in California and one of the few in the United States. The billet is as hazardous as it is unique. She does general work, just as do all of the other officers; her sex make no difference--if anything it makes her consignment harder.
As an intelligent worker, and a handler of violently insane persons, Deputy Yaw has rendered signal service to the department. Intelligence work consists in gathering that confidential information which is on file in every sheriff's office regarding persons and property within the county.
As a server of subpoenas, Mrs. Yaw has no equal. She has succeeded in rendering service when every man in the department had failed. Often she located people who were supposed to have moved out of the country.
"Perhaps my greatest success has been in handling women criminals and also in dealing with insane patients," says Mrs. Yaw. "The department seems to think that my greatest need is in the last named work. Arresting the unfortunate victims of insanity is of course, the most dangerous duty which confronts peace officers. One never knows when the crazy person will become violet nor to what extent he will go."
"In the year that I have been a deputy sheriff, I have found it necessary to manacle but two insane patients. That was when I first came into the sheriff's office and before I became thoroughly familiar with the work."
So remarkable has Deputy Sheriff Yaw's success been in handling insane persons that it has attracted wide attention among medical men.
"Only in one instance have I ever had trouble in quieting a crazy person. That was in the case of a man and his wife, both mentally unbalanced, who had been shooting as passersby on the State highway which ran in front of their house near this city. Realizing that it would be no small job to arrest them, I took other officers with me."
"When we approached the house the aged couple leveled rifles at us from their porch and told us if we came closer than 10 feet they would kill us. Looking into the barrels of their weapons, I tried to persuade them to submit to arrest. Imagine the task! We finally took them through strategy, capturing the husband first and wife later. It was the only time that I ever felt that I was facing death."
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Woman Aspires to Be Deputy Sheriff
Mrs. Nettie Yaw Takes Civil Service Examination for Place.
The Fort Wayne Sentinel, May 10, 1915
Los Angeles [California]: For the first time in the history of Los Angeles county a woman has taken the civil service examination for deputy sheriff. If she passes the examination, Mrs. Nettie J. Yaw, sister-in-law of Ellen Beach Law, famous California soloist, will be the first regular woman deputy sheriff drawing a salary. Mrs. Yaw was the first and only woman to take the examination. Four hundred and seventy-nine men took the test. "I am firmly convinced that there is as much need for a woman deputy sheriff as there is for a woman police officer," said Mrs. Yaw, "and I am confident that I will be successful." The examination was for seven deputies to be paid a salary of $90 a month for the first six months and $100 after two years.
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Nettie Yaw Appointed
Crawfordsville Review, April 25, 1916
Women deputy sheriffs are to the fore. In Los Angeles county, California, Mrs. Nettie J. Yaw has just been appointed to that office. The board of supervisors created the position and the civil service commission concurred in the naming of the applicant. She was on the eligible list for matron at the county jail and had passed a qualifying examination.
Mrs. Yaw has had much experience in the handling of delinquents and criminals. She was not at all slow in getting busy in her new position. Half an hour after her appointment she was on her way to Whittier with several delinquent girls who had been sentenced to that institution.
Her work will have to do largely with women, although she may be called upon to arrest a boy or a man at any time. The position requires that she carry a badge and a gun, and that she fulfill offices similar to those detailed to the women in the police department of the city.
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Obituary
Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1943
Funeral services for Mrs. Nettie Yaw, 70, first woman deputy sheriff in Los Angeles and in California, who died Friday at the Queen of Angels Hospital, will be at 2 p.m. next Friday at Pierce Bros. Chapel. Cremation will follow the services. Mrs. Yaw, who lived at 1331 12th Ave., retired from the Sheriff’s staff in June, 1936, after serving more than 20 years as a deputy. In her years of service, during which she handled many notorious women prisoners who passed through the County Jail and took hundreds of convicted women to prison, she never fired a gun at any person and learned to shoot a pistol only a few years before her retirement. She was the widow of Charles B. Yaw, former government employee in Alaska. She leaves a cousin, Mrs. Margaret J. Yaw, of Whittier.
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[findagrave.com, Memorial # 141296033]
Nettie Jay was born in 19 November 1872 in New York State, the daughter of William H. and Emma (VanValkenburg) Jay, and died 26 February 1943 in Los Angeles, CA. She married Charles Bell Yaw. [California Death index, 1940-1997]
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