The Rookie: A Day in the Life of Chicago Policewoman
Being armed with only two years of social work at Loyola University and the older sister of nine brothers, Toni started her first day in 1938 as a Chicago Policewoman. There were only a handful of women on the force at that time, and the next 35 years proved to be a most troubled time in history. This is a story of that first day as told to me by my mother, Toni Quinn.
Jan paused to wipe away tears that rolled down her face. “Ruthie was all the time praying to have babies. She said that Buba would be such a good father that he would never drink again. He would want to stay home with his family. She spent all her spare money lighting candles in the church, praying to have a baby.” Heavy sobbing took over. “Three times she lost a baby because of Buba’s beatings. He used to be nice and I liked him but he changed. He drank too much and he got too jealous. When I told Ruthie to leave Buba, he wouldn’t let her come to my house any more.”
When I returned to the district station I called the parish priest and he agreed to go immediately to the parents’ home. He knew where the couple lived. He had been counseling Ruthie who had complained of Buba’s violent temper when he was drinking. Father Prowsinski would see that the bereaved parents were referred to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for financial aid.
No police report could describe all the poignant underlying emotions of this tragic death: the terror and despair of the wife, the guilt and anguish that Buba would suffer when he sobered up and realized that Ruthie had never been unfaithful, the grief of the parents in losing a loving daughter and their distress in the loss of financial aid. Buba’s nightmare had just begun.
I turned in my report, giving the neighbor’s names and statements and the pastor’s offer to help the ailing parents. After reading the two-page narrative, Sergeant Poole threw it down on the desk, “We don’t need social workers, we’re here to make arrests.” The sergeant was a midnight man working overtime and I assumed he was annoyed because of his lack of sleep but I heard this criticism of social workers often in the years to come. I picked up the report and took it into the secretary. Al Brunch said quietly, “Keep them coming. We DO need this kind of a report.”
The chilling statement of the posted police report was short and factual: ‘Woman found dead in her home in the 3000 block on W. Dickens. Stefan ‘Buba’ Kruizeng, the husband, admits to the killing and dismemberment of wife’s body. He is now in police custody.”
Ruthie and Buba’s story reminded me that I still worked with people problems. Changing jobs had not changed the tragedies of life nor the need for social workers. In passing through the lobby that night, I waved good-night to the desk sergeant and stood at the top of the stairs reflecting that I had been a police officer for just a few weeks. Ruthie had run up these steps many times, often barefoot, fleeing from her drunk-enraged husband. The night sergeant usually sent detectives to take her home with orders to calm Buba. If he still acted like a raging bull they locked him up for the night. There was no other solution.
I sighed to myself; “It looks like I’ll be a rookie for a long, long time.”
I now realized that in order to go on with a clear mind and a light heart, I would have to leave all memories and heartbreaking stories in the police station, in the police files. Ruthie’s ghost and all the others would lie quietly beneath those five marble steps. Stepping down each slab slowly – one at a time – my footsteps all but caressed the deep groves in the marble.
Oh, the stories those five marble steps could tell!
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