Mary Gail Tumlin, age 87 of Scottsboro, formerly of Huntsville and Rainsville, passed on Friday, January 31, 2025. A private family service will be held officiated by Elder Ricky Harcrow.\u00a0
\nMs. Tumlin is survived by her brother, Hubert Paul Tumlin; special friends, including her God daughter, Sandy Parker Norman and her family, the Brooks family of Huntsville, the Linda Parker Robertson family of Rainsville, and Randy and Patty Tumlin of Rainsville; and first cousins, Randy Tumlin and Anita Tumlin Machen.\u00a0
\nMs. Tumlin was preceded in death by her parents, Roy Tumlin and Flora Tumlin; and grandparents Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Tumlin and Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Downey.
\nMary was born June 6, 1937 in Rainsville, AL, to the late Hubert Roy Tumlin and Flora Downey Tumlin.\u00a0 She entered Plainview School in 1943 and finished junior high in 1952.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gail grew up loving life to the fullest.\u00a0 She was a \u201ctom boy\u201d and collaborated with her life time buddy, Linda Parker, and they both got into lots of mischievous trouble.\u00a0 They were known as the \u201cHoly Terrors\u201d in Broadway Church\u2019s Primary Sunday School Class.\u00a0 She later joined Broadway Baptist Church in 1951.\u00a0 Gail then went to DeKalb County High School in Fort Payne and graduated in 1955.\u00a0 Gail loved sports and played every sport that females were allowed to participate in during that time. Soon after graduation, a cousin persuaded her to apply to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 She was employed as a fingerprint technician until later 1962.\u00a0 At that time, she applied to the Huntsville Police Department and became the first female police officer ever hired by the city and broke the glass ceiling. \u00a0\u201cI was the only female around a bunch of men.\u00a0 I had to prove myself every step of the way.\u00a0 I was treated respectfully but they were wary.\u00a0 They sat back and watched to see if I could take care of myself and my partner.\u201d \u00a0And she did.<\/p>\n
Because of her gender, Mary became a specialist in juvenile crime and abuse of women and children.\u00a0 She ended her police career in those fields after 26 years of service in 1989.\u00a0 While serving in these areas, her division created the first D.A.R.E. program in Alabama.\u00a0 Also, the division started a children\u2019s advocacy center, the first in the nation.\u00a0 The division was honored with an award ceremony at the White House by President Ronald Reagan.\u00a0 She helped develop other advocacy centers in the United Sates.\u00a0 At the time of her retirement, her division was in charge of Juvenile Squad, Hostage Negotiations, D.A.R.E. Programs, the Arson and Bom Squad, Felony Warrants, and the General Squad.\u00a0 Mary was honored as the state of Alabama\u2019s Outstanding Law Enforcement Officer, and Huntsville\u2019s Outstanding Law Enforcement officer.\u00a0 In 2017, Mary was honored by Mayor Tommy Battle and the city Council of Huntsville for being the first female police officer by permanently displaying her dress uniform at Police Headquarters.\u00a0 This ceremony was arranged by the late Dr. Mary Jane Caylor, a longtime friend.\u00a0 She has always been a loyal fan of Alabama Football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mary Gail Tumlin, age 87 of Scottsboro, formerly of Huntsville and Rainsville, passed on Friday, January 31, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14451,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450\/revisions\/14451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}