Instructor Ted Berrum with Officers, Lelki, Sole, Wesley, and Policewoman Lola King-Geiseking

RENO NEVADA POLICE DEPARTMENT’S FIRST POLICEWOMAN
by Jim Gibbs

The History of female police officers working Reno Police Department has been subject to personal interpretation of researchers for years. We believe that it really boils down to intent, not duties that define who is a policewoman. Sorting through women’s contributions to the Reno Police History in a “man’s world and occupation” is a challenge. However, we do believe we have answered the difficult question: Who was Reno’s first woman police officer?

As mentioned, the answer to that question really depends upon several things including the definition of a policewoman and even the interpretation of the term “policewoman” during different moments in history.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, (January 1942) an "Auxiliary to the Police" was created with 50 women filling the ranks. The description of their duties appears that they were more of a civil defense organization to instruct housewives on wartime emergency duties. The members of the "Auxiliary to the Police" were not police officers.

I do believe, with all of those considerations, the title of “Reno’s First Policewoman” goes to Bernadine Salonisen.

Bernadine had previously worked for the City of Reno's engineering department and was married to Reno Police Officer Michael Salonisen. Like many men of military age during World War II, Michael Salonisen resigned in October 1942 to join the Navy as a Seabee after being with the Police Department since 1938.

On January 26, 1943 Mrs. Bernadine Salonisen was employed as assistant in the bureau of identification. It was reported to the City Council that Mrs. Salonisen would also act as secretary to the chief and matron of the jail. She would be on call at all times.

I can find no other reference to a woman being employed by the police department prior to Mrs. Salonisen as a matron or policewoman. She wouldn’t stay long. In August of 1944, Bernadine would quit and move on.

On September 8, 1944, Sarah Harrison Brown who had been a secretary in the district attorney's office and as a legal secretary for a Reno firm just prior to being employed by the Reno Police Department as an assistant in the bureau of identification and matron to the police department. Brown was hired to replace Bernadine Salonisen who resigned in August and left the Reno Area.

On November 17, 1944, the Reno Gazette published an article regarding Reno police badges issued during the past three years which entitled a person to carry a concealed firearm and the reasons given for issuance of the badges. On their list of 160 permits were Sarah Harrison Brown, classified as a policewoman for the city of Reno and Bernadine Salonisen although no longer employed by the police department, she had been classified as a police officer at the time she acquired the weapons permit to be permitted to carry a concealed weapon.

Sarah Harrison Brown was hired to replace Bernadine Salonisen. Both were listed as police officers in the article published by the Reno Gazette regarding permits to carry concealed weapons. Brown was employed by the Reno Police Department as an assistant in the bureau of identification and matron to the police department. Brown would also act as secretary to the chief just as Salonisen had.

When hired, Sarah Brown was issued an identification card which said she was a member of the Reno police. As both Salonisen and Brown were hired by Chief Harry Fletcher, and Brown was hired to replace Salonisen it can be assumed that both had similar ID cards issued. The difference between the two woman and how they were viewed by other officers and the media may have been personalities, attitude and aggression. Salonisen appeared quite, Brown was aggressive and outgoing.

Following the hiring of Sarah Brown, two incidents involving what many referred to as a "Reno Police Matron" suggests that she had authority to make arrests but was not wearing any sort of uniform or even carrying a badge to identify her as a law enforcement officer.

One occurred in October 1945 when Brown chased down a reckless driver and motioned the driver to the side of the road. It was obvious from the story that she was not in a uniform or a police car. It was suggested that the man probably stopped to see what she wanted out of curiosity. He got a ticket.

The other incident occurred in 1946 when she approached a man who had just made an illegal U-Turn on Virginia Street. She was not in a uniform and reportedly not carrying a badge. The man refused to acknowledge Brown's authority when she requested his driver's license and walked off. Much to his surprise he was arrested when he returned to his vehicle discovering that Brown was in the process of impounding his car.

Sarah Brown became increasingly involved in cases reported in the news media. Especially if the case involved women or children. It was announced by Sheriff Ray Root in January 1947, that city police matron Sarah Brown and a deputy sheriff would travel to Chicago to bring to Reno a male and female couple wanted for the murder of their child. The couple had waived extradition and the trip was expected to take about a week traveling by train.

In August 1947 an ordinance was passed providing for the bonding of Sarah Brown and described her position as a "clerk to the chief of police".

In May 1948 a woman was arrested for stealing Policewoman Sarah Brown's purse. The stolen purse contained about $38 in cash, a .32 caliber revolver and various personal items, but no badge.

Also, in 1948, fourteen members of the department tested for lieutenant. Only five passed. Sarah Brown tested and passed an examination for the post of superintendent of police women which was apparently equivalent to the rank of lieutenant. At the same time, Lola King passed the new civil service exams to become a policewoman. When the promotions were made from the eligibility list, Sarah Brown would be promoted to superintendent of police women and Lola King would be hired as Reno's second female officer at the Reno Police Department.

It has been observed that during the years of 1948 through 1950 that the media refers to Sarah Brown as a “lieutenant”. However, in a mini biography at the time of her retirement in 1954, it states that she was promoted to lieutenant in 1951 and noted that she had tested and qualified for the rank of captain, a test which she took in 1950.

None the less she seemed to be actively involved in cases in addition to being the "go to person" in between the department members and the chief of police.

In 1950, a local doctor was arrested for operating an interstate abortion business. At the time of his arrest it was reported that his contact person from the San Francisco Bay area in the illegal business, a guy name Golding was followed from the Reno airport by two police women and taken into custody in the parking lot of the doctor's office by Lt. Sarah Brown.

Another incident to confirm Brown's trusted role within the department occurred in March, 1951. During an investigation and the firing of a Reno police officer for mishandling a prisoner’s property. The officer allegedly offered and signed a statement given to Chief Greeson in the presences of Assistant Chief Berrum, J. C. Kumie and Sarah Brown.

Ironically, as the Reno Police Department seemed to be progressing in the employment of female officers with hiring of two additional policewomen a setback occurred in 1952. Reno City management decided to demote two policewomen for budgetary reasons. Officer Mary Reilly, who had been with the department for 3 1/2 years, and Pat Higbee were both demoted out of their police authority duties to less paying positions. Both women protested their demotions at no avail. The story in the news covering the demotions listed only Lt. Sarah Brown and Lola King-Geiseking as the remaining two women officers. After being hired in 1948, Lola King married a Reno police officer named Alvin Geiseking. It wasn’t long after the demotion of Mary Reilly and Pat Higbee, that Lola Geiseking apparently left the department.

A description of the Reno Police Force in October of 1953 outlined the duties of the 80-man police force and stated that Chief of Police L.R. Greeson was assisted by Ted Berrum and the department’s lone police woman, Lt. Sarah Brown.

On January 30, 1953, Lt. Sarah Brown spoke before her Tri-Delta sorority members of her work and training as a member of the department. The talk was not documented, but mentioned, Lt. Brown had added many informal anecdotes of incidents which occur in the life of a police woman.

In December 1954, Sarah Brown resign, got married and moved with her new husband to Las Vegas.

Upon her resignation, when asked by the news media, “What Does She Do?", Chief of Police Lorenz Greeson remarked, “It would take a week to out-line Sarah's work around here," Chief Greeson went on to mention some of the things she handles, regularly and capably: The job of being in charge of all police personnel; being in charge of the lost and found department; personal secretary to Chief Greeson; in charge of department supplies—ordering and storing them; policewoman and command officer.

The Chief also said, “Because Lt. Brown has worked in almost every line of police work and has taken every training course available, she is very much of a trouble-shooter within the department, the phrase, "Ask Sarah" comes up a dozen or more times every day around police headquarters; if anybody has the answer to the particular problem at hand, Sarah Brown will have it.”

The story of her retirement also mentioned that Lt. Brown was the only out-of-state woman member of the Women's Peace Officer Association of California, and she will probably will be the only one, as the group doesn't take in out-of-state members anymore, except on an honorary basis.

HOME ECONOMICS MAJOR TO POLICEWOMAN
The Home Economics major that Sarah Brown held from the University of Nevada didn't exactly point toward police work, and Mrs. Brown herself wasn't at all sure she would take the job permanently when she first joined the force in 1944. "But I loved it," she said in an interview, "every minute of It." That goes for fingerprinting, mugging, making arrests and bookings, learning judo, handling firearms ranging from machine guns to sidearms and being "in" on general police affairs. It isn't the sort of thing the usual Home Economics student ever gets to do.

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