Chambermaid Blues

 

Staff at the Turtleford Hotel, 1917. Source: Turtleford Treasures, 1986.

Chambermaids were essential to the operation of a small-town Saskatchewan hotel back in the early 1900s. The hotel chambermaid worked from morning ‘til night, cleaning guest rooms, doing laundry, and washing dishes for which they were paid $30 per month, plus room and board.

Some aspects of a chambermaid’s work were less than appealing. In the days before hotels had running water, chambermaids’ duties included retrieving chamber pots from under beds and emptying the contents into a receptacle behind the hotel building. And, in the “occupational hazard” department, chambermaids were usually the ones who discovered dead bodies in hotel rooms.

The Story of Pauline Gerring, Chambermaid

The most appalling story I have come across about a chambermaid in a small-town Saskatchewan hotel is the drugging and rape of Pauline Gerring in 1920. At age 19, Pauline applied for a position as a chambermaid at the hotel at Chaplin, located half way between Moose Jaw and Swift Current. When she arrived, she was shown to her room by the hotel manager, a woman of some disrepute named Virginia Paul. 

The Chaplin Hotel, c. 1915. Source

At the end of her first day on the job, Gerring was invited to a drinking party at the hotel proprietor’s house where she met a member of the Saskatchewan Provincial Police (SPP), Constable Harold Dewhirst. Prohibition was in full swing in the province, and it was the job of the SPP to enforce the Temperance Act. Dewhirst had other ideas. On the night of November 10, 1920, Gerring’s second night of work, the policeman and Virginia Paul gave the young girl two drinks of whiskey in the hotel. When the chambermaid refused a third drink of whiskey, Paul held a glass of water to the girl’s lips while she drank. The next thing Gerring remembered was waking up in the morning, partially dressed, with Constable Dewhirst in her bed.

As a result of Pauline Gerring’s complaint, Virginia Paul was charged with unlawfully administering drugs, and, along with Constable Dewhirst, with violating the Temperance Act. Dewhirst was also charged with a breach of the Provincial Police Act, fined, and dismissed from the force. He was later charged with bribing Pauline Gerring to disappear so that she would not testify against him on the rape charge. Gerring ran to Calgary. When she was brought back to Regina to testify, she was so frightened that she ran away a second time. On February 28, 1921, after two trial adjournments, the rape charge against Dewhirst was dropped because Pauline Gerring refused to tell her story.

Government Scandal 

For some reason, the Hon. George Langley, MLA for Cumberland and Minister of Municipal Affairs, decided to get involved in the Gerring case - a decision that ended his political career. When Gerring was brought back from Calgary after her first disappearance, the magistrate in the rape case committed her to jail in Regina until the next trial could take place. Langley felt it was wrong that the victim was being held as a prisoner. He therefore intervened, and on January 28, 1921, arranged for Gerring to be moved to a mental home on Dewdney Avenue in Regina. To read Langley's statement about these events, click here.

Gerring made her second escape from this home the day before the next trial date of February 7th. While Langley claimed that all authorities, including the police, had been notified of the removal of Gerring from jail, Premier Martin was furious. He charged Langley with having stolen the young woman from jail and hiding her from police. The Premier asked for, and received, Langley's resignation. To read the Premier Martin's entire version of the story, click here 

Corruption

Dewhirst told his side of the sordid affair in a letter to the Regina Leader-Post on February 4, 1922. “The whole thing simmers down to a jazz party, such as are carried on every day,” the unemployed former policeman wrote. He went on to blame Pauline Gerring, who “was not used to drinking liquor. She admits herself to two or three drinks. How much liquor will a person take if not used to it?” As for his violation of the Temperance Act, “how many persons holding important positions even of a more exacting nature that a policeman’s have also violated the [Act]?”

This crime against the young chambermaid at the Chaplin Hotel is an example of the negative effects of Prohibition. The growth of the illegal liquor trade in Saskatchewan fostered excessive drinking and made criminals out of many, including policemen.

No Money to Hire Chambermaids

After the decimating effects of Prohibition (1915-1924) on Saskatchewan’s hotels, and the subsequent onset of the Great Depression, there was no money to hire chambermaids or other hotel staff. All members of the hotel owner’s family had to share in the work of running the hotel. For example, Harry Swanson, owner of the Snowden Hotel, married his wife Aster in 1936. “I brought my new bride home to the new venture,” Swanson wrote in Snowden’s local history book. “She became cook, waitress, chambermaid, and did the washing by hand; what a job for my bride!”

©Joan Champ, 2019