When I think about the mark the late Shirley Franklin left on this world, I think about the story my godson’s father told me.
He was in junior high school when they met while Franklin was working a police detail at the St. Pius School bingo. The police officer and the teenager forged a friendship that extended into his freshman year at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute.
When he stopped by the old Sutton Street police station to say, “hi,” Shirley Franklin turned the visit into a mentoring opportunity. She interspersed a tour of the grubby, crowded brick building with observation and advice for a young kid growing up in Lynn, including words of wisdom about how it’s important to hang around with the right people.
“She was a good person to talk to. She talked to me about everything,” said my godson’s father.
He was probably one of dozens, maybe hundreds, of young people who got a kind word, a helping hand, maybe a stern glance from a woman who defined character by how much she could do for other people.
Shirley Franklin died last Saturday and her obituary described her as “hard but very fair, and a hard worker who paved the way for many.”
The late Clara Zamejtis and Helen McSweeney preceded her as policewomen investigators, but Shirley Franklin was the first patrolwoman hired by the Lynn Police Department in 1974.
“She’s a regular lady police officer and I know a very good one,” said Mayor David Phillips upon appointing Franklin.
In her first months on the job, Franklin identified youth outreach as a top priority and she brought a straightforward philosophy to talking to kids.
“I feel that if I can speak to them I can head off problems which might later develop,” she told a Daily Evening Item reporter.
The youngest of six sisters, Franklin was working as a school custodian when, according to her obituary, she studied for and took the police exam. By the way, she raised four children and was a foster mother.
Franklin embraced a work ethic that she used as a measuring stick for the people she helped. She considered herself a “misfit” before she started a career and she talked frankly to the Item about breaking ground in the Police Department as a woman and as a Black woman.
“There’s no doubt that the fact the Black community isn’t represented on the force as much as perhaps it should be swayed me in joining the department,” she said.
Shirley Franklin wasn’t afraid to state her opinion; she didn’t shy away from a fight, and for every person who thought she said too much, there were 10 others, like my godson’s father, who were glad she took the time to talk to them.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
