CHAPTER 13

WAR AGAIN

In July 1941, Mae turned fifty-three, with eighteen years of service as a sworn officer, and still, no one day on the job was like any other. It was the variety Mae liked. There was definitely an element of surprise in each case, a life lesson in values or the dangers of guesswork, the satisfaction in getting justice for a victim, the pride in keeping the city safe for its citizens, particularly young women and girls.

But there was one chore she personally detested, and that was the special task all policewomen got to experience at one time or another. Mae had more practice than most, having been called on hundreds of times over the years to search the bodies of female DOAs. Dead on arrival, the victims were deceased, whether due to “suicides, homicides, or merely a case of suspicious circumstances,”¹ it didn’t matter. If it happened in the 108th Precinct, Mae got the call. She’d learned that she needed to move fast, get on-site before the coroner’s van arrived, and then thoroughly conduct her inspection, search the body, and examine the surrounding area.

Mae’s nearly two decades on the force, her keen eye for critical details, and her insights into potential affecting circumstances often led to deductions that proved essential to an investigation. She knew detectives and a bevy of young patrolmen would be waiting, pens out, notebooks at the ready, to hear her insights. She would do her work in silence as they watched, then provide relevant information to the detectives on-site. They knew they could proceed with confidence that Detective Mae Foley had set them on the right path to determine what had happened and who was responsible.

By the early 1940s, there were more women coming into the force, and Mae was instrumental in giving them the benefit of her expertise. One of the new officers was Gertrude “Gertie” Schimmel. Outspoken, loud, and often profane, she became known as the Ethel Merman of the NYPD, but her career laid the groundwork for women to finally gain the right to go on street patrols and into squad cars.²

Gertie sat the police exam in 1939, but while she was third on the order of merit list, she wasn’t yet twenty-one, so she was skipped over for that class. She entered the academy along with seventeen other women and three hundred men in what became known as the famous class of 1940. This first post-Depression class contained over two hundred college graduates and produced a police commissioner, a chief inspector (equivalent to today’s chief of department), and dozens of captains and higher. Only six of the three hundred remained at the rank of patrolman throughout their service.³

Gertie went on to have a groundbreaking career. In 1962, she and another policewoman, Felicia Shpritzer, took the exam for promotion to sergeant. While they had the two highest scores on the test, the department insisted that women weren’t physically able to “handle advanced jobs” and refused to promote them. The women sued, and they were promoted in 1965, although the New York Times was quick to point out that “no policeman will be supervised by a woman.”⁴

Gertie ignored the media and her critics and continued to challenge the brass ceiling. In 1971, she became the NYPD’s first female captain. By 1974, she was a deputy inspector. Her trailblazing efforts led to more changes in policing.⁵

The notion of men and women together in patrol cars sparked protests, not just by the male officers but by their spouses. The wives marched from police headquarters to city hall, loudly voicing their objections to the media. The newly elected president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said he would “press for the removal of women from foot and automobile patrol because they lacked the physical and emotional ability to handle violent situations.” Gertie adroitly dismissed their arguments. “Nothing is factual, it’s all emotional,” she said. “The men make allowances for each other. They won’t tell you about the men they don’t want to work with.”⁶

Women were just as effective as men, she stated, “and in some instances better, because they might prevent violence from happening.”⁷ This was a well-known truth since the early days of women in policing and was something Mae knew from her first days on the force. She thought the issue was more about fear of women taking men’s jobs or the wives worried about their husbands alone in a patrol car with a female cop. Why punish the women if wives couldn’t trust their husbands?

Even in the 1940s, when Gertie and her compatriots were joining the NYPD, women were held to higher standards than men and were required to hold college degrees. Male applicants were not. Mae later commented on the educational requirements, saying simply that policewomen “must have the technique to know what to do in any situation.”⁸

Of course, Mae’s education in police work, investigating, counseling, testifying, and understanding the consequences for society as the result of crime—all of it beyond those early classes in the basics—had all come through a master’s-level course called tough firsthand experience. By 1941, she thought she’d seen and done it all.

One afternoon, she left work a bit early and took herself out for a treat. It was an unusually warm and humid March day in New York, and Mae thought she might just take in a movie, sit in the dark in an air-conditioned theater swirling with the artificial breezes, and relax. So she bought her ticket for the matinee, and through force of habit, she scanned the rows of other moviegoers for anyone with ill intentions. She didn’t see any potential seat tippers, pickpockets, or murderers. All clear, she settled in with her bag of popcorn and cream soda and prepared to turn off her overactive investigative brain and simply enjoy herself.

Mae was excited about the main feature. She looked forward to this one, the new movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda—The Lady Eve. They were among her favorite movie stars, but the big attraction for Mae was the setting and plot for the movie. The storyline was about a con artist (Barbara Stanwyck) who along with her two cronies were card sharks, fleecing the other passengers on an ocean cruise. Eve was a sharp card player and a lousy flirt. Mae had nearly finished her popcorn by the time Eve fell in love with Henry Fonda’s character, a naive young man, the heir to a brewery and its fortune.

The sweet bubble of the movie’s happy ending burst as Mae left the theater and blinked in the harsh afternoon sunlight and the blasting cacophony of taxi horns. Mae sighed and trudged off to her little cottage in Jackson Heights, but she longed for something more. A good, long ocean cruise where she could lose herself in the fantasy life of the rich and famous. Not that she planned to fall for any con artist or card shark.

On Sunday morning, March 23, Mae sat at her dining room table with the plump New York Times and the somewhat smaller Sunday edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The Eagle’s front-page story let her know in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t be heading out on a cruise to Europe any time soon. The headline blared, “Nazi Fleet Sweeps Atlantic for New Victims After Reich Claims Record Toll of 33 Ships.”

Mae turned the page, sipped her coffee, and kept on scanning. She usually read every single article in the Sunday paper, but not today. When the news was bad, as most of it was in those days, she just skipped ahead. Then an advertisement caught her eye. Right there on page 46.

It was a full quarter page, announcing that the Great White Fleet was promoting its cruises to Central America. “Give life the lift it needs!” the ad proclaimed. “Cruise gaily out to venturesome days…to the magic of colorful ports and sunny hours bright with fun.”⁹

Before the war, Mae would never even have considered a visit to Central America. Sure, she’d cruised through the Panama Canal but not into any of the other countries in the region. This itinerary certainly looked promising though. She put her cold coffee aside and kept reading. The sixteen-day cruise left New York on Fridays and included the Panama Canal Zone, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Havana, Cuba. Every other cruise substituted Nassau, Bahamas, or Kingston, Jamaica, for Havana.

It wasn’t the classic European cruise she’d grown to love, but it definitely had some potential. That promise included onboard “outdoor pools, spacious sports decks, splendid orchestras, famed service,”¹⁰ and all the staterooms were designated as first class. Mae was sold.

She sailed to Central America in June, earlier than her usual vacation time, but then she didn’t want to be sweating in the jungles of Guatemala when temperatures were at the height of summer. She timed it too so that she could visit Jamaica, having already seen Havana and Honduras in 1932. Maybe she’d stay onboard during one of the port days and lounge by the pool instead. It wouldn’t be crowded, and she could indulge in a new beverage, perhaps a piña colada. Mae was always up for something new.

Ancon transiting the Panama Canal in 1939. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

It was a lovely cruise, she thought later, but not quite as elegant as her European excursions. The ship, the Ancon, wasn’t truly the same European-style first class that Mae was used to, but for sixteen days, Mae was able to relax in the sun and enjoy the tropical warmth. Besides, the ship actually featured real coffee. No rationing there.

The Ancon sailed its last season as a cruise liner in 1941. By 1942, she was taken over by the Army Transport Service and used for troop transport to Europe. The Ancon served as the flagship coordinating operations in support of American forces landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944. By August 1945, she was parked in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender.

But Mae knew none of that. She only knew that options for travel escape were becoming more and more limited and the majority of her plans would be placed on hold for the duration of the war. In fact, war in Europe and the Pacific was coming home to New York in ways that Mae thought had ended with the dissolution of the Bund. She was still working on cases of potential sabotage and wondering daily what the world was coming to.

December 7, 1941, dawned as a bright, sharply sunny day in New York City, a bit chilly and breezy, but it looked like a nice afternoon for a walk through the neighborhood. Mae had the radio on in her kitchen as she gathered up the Sunday papers, having spent the morning perusing them from front to back. Then she stopped in her tracks at the special announcement on the radio. All servicemen and women were being ordered to return to their stations.

Something was wrong, Mae knew. She looked at the phone. Something major was happening. Would the police also be recalled? They were in charge of coordinating civil defense of the city after all. But that day, despite her waiting and watching, the call didn’t come. By suppertime the news bulletins were coming in to announce that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. As dusk approached, the announcements changed, telling New Yorkers to take precautions and “Cover all windows and do not allow any light to escape. Do not use the telephone because all telephone lines at this time must be reserved for the government.”11

Just then, the telephone shrilled. Mae jumped, but she knew already it wasn’t the 108th calling. It had to be the girls.

“Mom, have you heard the news? What are we going to do? What if they draft Fred? I don’t want him to go in the army. I won’t know what to do without him!” Florence sounded frantic.

“You need to stay off the phone, hon. Why don’t you come over tomorrow for supper and we can talk about it. Okay?”

“But, Mom, what if Fred is drafted right away?” Florence started to cry.

“Now, now. I’m sure that Fred won’t be called up tomorrow. But right now, honey, I need to keep the line open so the station can reach me if I’m needed. Don’t worry. It is all going to be fine. We’ll talk soon. Bye-bye now. Love you.” Mae hung up.

A second later, the phone rang again.

Of course, the other one had to check in too. “Mom! What do you think? Is the department calling back all the cops? What’s going to happen here? Do you have the scoop?”

“Grace, honey, I have to keep the line open if my boss calls. I promise I’ll tell you everything just as soon as I know. You can come over tomorrow with your sister, and we can all have a nice visit. Love you. Good night.”

Mae put the phone firmly back into its cradle and stared at it as though daring it to ring again. It didn’t. She turned out the lights and pulled back the curtains, staring out into the street. Everything was dark, as far as she could see. Not even a glow on the horizon from the big city lights in Manhattan.

Mae knew she wouldn’t sleep at all that night or for many to come. Would the station call? She didn’t know. She was still processing the weight of what was happening, how everything was different now.

America was at war.