Alice Chandler, thought of to be the primary girl to function an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, died earlier this month. She was 94.
The cowgirl, who held her badge from 1949 by way of 1951, additionally labored as a canine breeder, cattle herder, Christian missionary and caregiver throughout a well-traveled life that took her from her birthplace of Memphis, Tenn., to Irvine Ranch to Africa and again to California.
Born Dorothy Alice Chandler on June 19, 1928, she was certainly one of 9 youngsters.
Her household moved out west throughout the Nice Despair. She, alongside together with her mom and two sisters, grew to become caretakers on the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch, the place passing cowboys and patrolling deputies taught her learn how to shoot a gun, Chandler stated in a 2009 interview with California of the Previous.
Surrounded by cowboys and cattle, Chandler discovered learn how to journey a horse at 16. In 1949, a month after her twenty first birthday, she was summoned to then-Orange County Sheriff James Musick’s workplace in Santa Ana. He requested her to patrol the land round her house by Peters Lake to scare away poachers and different trespassers, Chandler recalled.
“I had no coaching apart from the deputies out within the discipline,” Chandler stated. “I didn’t must go to lessons. And naturally, I didn’t must put on a uniform.”
After an hour-long interview, Musick handed Chandler a badge and a signed identification card that granted her police authority. However the job didn’t pay and she or he had to make use of her personal gun and horse, Chandler stated.
As a particular deputy, Chandler could be on name working for and patrolling property owned by the Irvine Co. — holdings that might finally play a pivotal position within the growth of Orange County.
Chandler was at a slight drawback when she first began. Her private gun, a Smith & Wesson .32-caliber revolver, had an extended barrel that was not appropriate for horseback driving.
“I put it in my holster and each time I received on the horse, it was so huge it stored getting in the way in which,” Chandler stated. “So, I informed my mother. I don’t know the place she received the cash. I stated, ‘I’ve received to have a smaller gun.’”
Wanting again, Chandler appreciated her mom’s tenacity in serving to her fulfill the deputy position.
“Are you able to think about a mom in that day and age, realizing that her daughter’s going to be a deputy sheriff, and never saying, ‘Oh, you may’t do this pricey. You would possibly get killed otherwise you would possibly no matter’? Not my mother,” Chandler stated.
Photos her mom took with a Kodak Brownie captured Chandler together with her golden curls and cowboy boots, sporting a pistol and her deputy’s badge.
Chandler by no means used her gun whereas on patrol and by no means made an arrest, as a result of individuals revered the badge.
“In these days, all you wanted to do was journey your horse for individuals to show round,” stated Ray Grimes, curator of the Orange County Sheriff’s Museum & Training Heart.
As Chandler put it in 2008, based on her biography from the museum, “I used to be simply on the home, and we watched to see if anyone got here; we might see vehicles down the grime street. I rode my horse round, with my badge and my gun, on occasion. Imagine it or not, the trespassing stopped. I’ve a sense it wasn’t simply me, however it could have been that the trespassers stated, ‘We received a deputy sheriff over there.’”
Chandler’s profession in legislation enforcement ended shortly after it began, when her household relocated from Irvine Ranch and acquired their very own, extra modest plot of land. She continued to journey horses, study rodeo abilities and herd cattle, based on her biography.
She and her sister have been later employed as extras for the 1957 movie “The Spirit of St. Louis.” Finally, she and her sister earned their very own pilot’s licenses with assist from their mom, Chandler informed the Orange County Register in 2012.
Within the Seventies, the household’s property was misplaced to foreclosures, Grimes stated, and the Chandlers have been compelled to say goodbye to their horses, canines and their ranch life.
“Their life modified dramatically at the moment after they needed to let go of all that,” Grimes stated.
Chandler then traveled to Africa as a Christian missionary, the Register reported.
It wasn’t till 2008 that Chandler — who labored as a caregiver upon her return to California, based on the Register — thought concerning the badge, pistol and sheriff-signed identification card that had lengthy lain forgotten in a toy chest. She wrote to then-county Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to say she needed to return the gadgets as a result of she didn’t have any youngsters to inherit them.
“I’d love to show in my badge and card to you virtually 60 years after getting it,” Chandler wrote. “I believe it might make a hoot of a narrative, particularly if I’ve by no means been formally launched from the division.”
Chandler didn’t have any quick household she was near and relocated to Leisure World in Laguna Woods later in life, Grimes stated. He gave her an Orange County sheriff’s coin that she proudly displayed on the entrance of her walker.
“She was an actual pistol,” Grimes stated.
Chandler died June 10 at a Corona convalescent house the place she lived for a number of years, based on her pals.
Present Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes known as Chandler “a ray of sunshine to all who knew her” and stated she “served as an inspiration for a lot of ladies in legislation enforcement.”
“She constructed particular bonds with many ladies in legislation enforcement in Orange County and can at all times be remembered for her spirited persona and heat coronary heart,” Barnes stated in an announcement. “I ship my condolences to all who knew and cherished her. She might be very missed.”
One of many ladies she befriended was former Backyard Grove bike officer Katherine Anderson.
In a 2020 outing, Anderson took Chandler to breakfast after which to a horse steady. Chandler admitted that it had been greater than 30 years since she final noticed a horse up shut.
Anderson recorded Chandler pushing her walker and jokingly stated, “Decelerate scorching rod.”
Chandler beamed and stated, “I don’t know if I understand how.”
