Pioneers of Justice: Meet Kentucky's First Women Sheriffs

 Years ago, I read about Lurline Humphries, one of the first women sheriffs in my home state of Kentucky. She was said to be fearless and to be so respected by criminals that she rarely even carried a gun. I found her an interesting character and used her in one of my unpublished novels.

However, when I researched her story, I discovered there were several candidates for the "first woman sheriff" in the state at a time when women rarely worked outside the home. All of them have fascinating stories.

Lois Roach, "whose steady blue eyes smile a welcome even before her soft, southern voice inquires your business," became sheriff of Graves County after her husband died in office. John T. Roach had won a four-year term as sheriff, starting in January 1922. That March, he was tragically shot and killed by one of his own deputies in the county courthouse in Mayfield. The couple had a six-year-old daughter. His widow was appointed, with the support of the community, to serve until an election could be held for the remainder of his term.

Apparently, Prohibition played a role in the murder, as Mrs. Roach was later commended for her wisdom in choosing her deputies and enforcing prohibition laws.

In January of the next year, the sheriff declared her candidacy for election to complete her husband's term, using sympathy to urge the voters to support her. "I need the income of this office," she wrote. "I alone must fight the battle of life for myself and child, and in so doing I can render you a service. Does the daughter of John T. Roach not deserve the opportunities and advantages of an education such as he would have given her? Is there no reward for the woman that sacrifices everything for the success of her husband, whose first thought was service for his country?"

However, the local newspaper, The Mayfield Messenger, endorsed her on merit, saying she had "conducted the affairs of the office with an efficiency and dispatch scarcely ever achieved by any of her predecessors in that office."

The primary election was held in July, and the Messenger-Inquired reported, "after a hot campaign, stumping the county against two men it was Mrs. Roach's name certified as winner." She won the primary election with more votes than the two challengers combined, and she went unchallenged in the general election that year. She served as sheriff until 1927 and remained active in state politics for decades.

Three counties away and a decade later, Lurline Humphries ran for Trigg County sheriff in 1933. She had worked as a deputy sheriff for 19 years, part of the time under her brother, J. Charles Humphries. When she won election, newspapers declared her the first woman elected county sheriff in the state, not mentioning Mrs. Roach.

That was not the only "first" in her career. As a deputy, she had made the Paducah News-Democrat newspaper in 1921 when she and another woman each delivered boys to the state reformatory on the same day. "This is the first time in the history of the institution that a woman deputy has delivered a prisoner to the institution," the report said.

Lurline Humphries was described
as blonde, although she does not
appear blonde in this photo.

Upon her election, the Lexington Herald described her as "a blonde slightly over five feet tall." The writer added, "Considered fearless, she has not shrunk from making arrests in person." Another newspaper writer stated, "After seeing her picture in the Cadiz Record, we would prefer to be arrested in Trigg County."

Miss Humphries came from a law enforcement family--in addition to her brother, her father and an uncle had served as sheriff. Even after she retired, she returned to the sheriff's office in 1952, when she was appointed to fill out the term of a sheriff who died in office.

Yet a third woman was identified as the first woman elected sheriff in the state, in Cumberland County in 1937. Pearl Carter Pace, 41-year-old mother of three, succeeded her husband, S.C. Pace. The Kentucky Post in Covington declared, "Criminals in Cumberland Will Answer to a Woman." She was the daughter of a circuit court judge and had a brother serving as sheriff in another county.

When the Louisville Courier-Journal printed an article claiming Mrs. Pace was the first woman in the state elected to the office, a Cadiz resident wrote a letter to the editor reminding readers about Miss Humphries' legitimate claim to that distinction. In fact, Miss Humphries was the only one of the three to achieve the office without succeeding her husband.

Despite the confusion over who was actually the first, these three women broke barriers by serving as sheriffs in the early decades of the 20th Century.

Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and ‘40s. An unpublished novel, Shifting Currents, is a finalist in the nationally recognized Maggie Awards. Learn more at www.MarieWellsCoutu.com.

Her historical short story, “All That Glitters,” was included in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction collection and is now available free when you sign up for Marie's newsletter here. In her newsletter, she shares about her writing, historical tidbits, recommended books, and sometimes recipes.