Margaret Q. Adams

Who was Margaret Q. Adams?

Margaret Queen Adams, née Margaret Queen Phillips, became the first woman deputy sheriff in the United States in 1912. She served in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department from 1912 to 1947.

Margaret Phillips was born in Kentucky, but moved to California with her family when she was nine years old and settled in downtown Los Angeles. She was the second of five children. Her older sister Lillian married William A. Hammel, who was sheriff of Los Angeles County twice and chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1904 to 1905. One of Adams's brothers, Oliver Roy Phillips, was also in law enforcement, being a police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Margaret Phillips married Elmer Adams on January 1, 1899 in Santa Ana, California. They had two children, Wilbur Vernon Adams and Anna Margaretta Adams Bowdish.

In 1912, Margaret Adams and her husband Elmer separated. As she needed to support her two children, her brother-in-law Sheriff William A. Hammel asked her to work at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office. According to family lore, she accepted the job, but only on the condition that she would be deputized.