Suffragist & Police Woman
1871 - 1963
1279 Mulvane

Born in DePere, WI, Eva moved to Lawrence, KS when she was five. At an early age she began writing poetry which her father published in one of his papers. Eva was an activist at an early age. Working as an editor for her father seemed to whet her appetite to speak out politically. She moved to Missouri hoping to be "heard" when she was on the stump. She returned home to Kansas to be the editor of two papers but upon returning to Topeka her vocation changed. She passed the civil service test to become a police officer in 1913. She was one of only 54 women police officers in the United States. The Good Government Club lobbied the city to hire police women and she was subsequently hired and sworn in by Mayor R.L. Cofran. Rev. Charles Sheldon was enthusiastic about her being hired and wrote an essay that would designate a woman policewoman a "Missionary Police Woman." Her books on being a police Woman were distributed nationwide.