The Widows’ and Orphans’ Aid Association of the San Francisco Police Department was founded on January 13th, 1878.
This Association was organized for the specific purpose of providing financial assistance to the loved ones of the individual member. The police officer is engaged in a hazardous profession, the recognition of which necessitates his preparing for the sudden and unexpected loss of his life. The family he leaves behind is seldom insured to such a contingency and so the benefits provided by membership in the Association become most helpful at a helpless moment.
Our Association is not an insurance company nor is it a political body. In the many years of our existence the Widows’ and Orphans’ Aid Association has never affiliated with any other organization of individual. We pride ourselves on being a good-will Association, flourishing upon the good-will of our members and the good-will of our legion of friends in the City of San Francisco.
Throughout the entire history of this benevolent Association our only concern has been the welfare of our members’ bereaved. It is the sincere wish and desire of each member that aim be perpetrated.
Introduction to the 1938 revision of the Widows and Orphans Constitution and By-laws.
Previous to the organization of our Association the custom prevailed in the Police Department of raising a subscription for the benefit of the family of a deceased Police Officer. For a considerable time before the organization of our Association, the Police Force numbered 150 members, but there was no one whose duty it was to raise a subscription for the family of a deceased brother.
Nor were any bound to subscribe in such case. The founders of our Association desire to perform by system a benevolence which had previously been performed in an accidental and irregular manner. Two objects were contemplated. One was a decent though unostentatious funeral, -for this purpose $100 was provided. The other, a benefit to the family or other dependents, or the nominee of the deceased member, -for this purpose $1000 was provided. It was also intended to have a responsible Committee, always acting in the visitation of the sick, and always ready to attend to the burial of the dead.
Thus our Association sprang into existence on the 13th of January, 1878