Born: 2 March 1917, United States
Died: 2 July 1986
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Grace Hattie Jens
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
The USPP’s fourth confirmed woman police officer was born Grace Hattie Jens on March 2, 1917, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In March 1940 she married Carl Judy in Michigan. They were both schoolteachers. After their marriage, the couple moved to Washington, DC, where Carl worked as a clerk for the government. She began working for the federal government in December 1940 but it’s not clear where or in what capacity.
On January 1, 1945, Grace H. Judy began work as a plainclothes officer with the USPP. For over a decade her duties included protecting “women and children from molestation in the parks.” She often returned to scenes of crime pretending to be a potential victim—all the while carrying a revolver, blackjack, and claw (which looked like half a handcuff and was pressed against a wrist or ankle) in her purse.
Private Judy responded to sexual assaults, questioning both victims and suspects. She was also assigned to carnivals and circuses. One 1954 newspaper report noted that she “patrolled thousands of acres of Washington park areas on the watch for murderers, suicides, and purse snatchers” while “always get[ting] her man.” Others refer to her work catching car thieves. She eventually moved from the field into administration, but her later career is less well known.
In 1946, Judy placed second among policewomen in the first annual Park Police Gunpowder Sweepstakes. In a sign of the paternalism of the period, the women were allowed to stand closer to the target than the male officers.
The Judys divorced in 1948. She married again on September 1, 1959. Her second husband was Abbie Rowe, an NPS photographer who was also an official photographer at the White House for decades. They divorced six years later.
Records reveal that Rowe was still a private in 1969. She retired from USPP in 1974 as a “senior officer.” Grace H. Rowe died on July 2, 1986.