In a recent awards presentation ceremony held at Thunder Bay, OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes presented the Silent Partner award to 23 spouses (or to a family member in posthumous circumstances) of OPP officers stationed at isolated detachments in Northwestern Ontario during the period from the OPP’s inception in 1909 to the late 1970s.
The award, a brooch designed in the form of an OPP badge with raised and recessed metal, studded with 66 colourful stones, is appropriately identified as “Silent Partner” and comes enclosed in a black velvet jewel box. Each recipient also received the Commissioner’s framed Certificate of Appreciation commending her for “her dedication, loyalty, and selfless contributions to support law enforcement in Ontario.”
Retired OPP member Andy Maksymchuk, who spent four years with his wife, Myra, at Central Patricia (now Pickle Lake) detachment, proposed the idea of a spousal award to Dennis O’Sullivan, Secretary-Treasurer of the Kenora Chapter of the OPP Veterans’ Association. The proposal was a request for recognition of the wives of OPP members who had lived in one- or two-man isolated locations and had become dedicated assistants and crucial supporters to their spouses. When their husbands were away attending court, or responding to calls for police service, these “unpaid members” were left alone to face unique challenges. Many were raising their own family, in unfamiliar communities away from relatives or close friends. Still, they answered the detachment door and telephone on a 24-hour basis. In some situations they were without radio contact with their husbands and sometimes the only police contact within a vast area. In loyalty to the OPP and of benefit to the citizens of Ontario, they acted as secretaries, interviewers and matrons. They searched female prisoners, cooked prisoner meals, cleaned the office and cells, took in and cared for abandoned or neglected children, performed first aid on prisoners and victims, and provided meals and accommodation for visiting senior officers and court officials. This dedication and invaluable unpaid work of these OPP wives was never before formally recognized, an honour long overdue.
O’Sullivan a former Kenora OPP Detachment Commander, whose wife, Alice, spent several years at Central Patricia Detachment, spearheaded the concept of the award. Through his hard work and dedicated efforts, the suggestion was well-received by the executive of the Ontario Provincial Police Veterans’ Association and the Commissioner of the OPP. The Silent Partner Award was established.
Along with Myra Maksymchuk and Alice O’Sullivan, the following document lists other spouses who were also honoured at Thunder Bay for their past dedication and assistance to their OPP husbands in the Kenora area.