Death of a 'modern day Joan of Arc'

As commuters made their way along New Westminster’s East Columbia Street on the morning of June 9, 1975, they would have had no idea that, behind the forbidding 30-foot-high stone walls of the B.C. Penitentiary they were driving by, a tragedy was beginning to unfold.

At 8 a.m., three young hardened male prisoners – two of them convicted murderers – took 15 hostages in a desperate attempt to escape the prison. Forty-one hours later, the drama came to a violent end as a prison tactical squad charged the hostage takers, firing a barrage of shots from their pistols.

They succeeded in ending the hostage-taking, wounding one of the convicts in the process. But one of the hostages paid a far higher price. Prison classification officer Mary Steinhauser, 32, was killed in the hail of bullets – shot through the shoulder and the heart.

The description of what happened during those 41 hours – particularly the confusing and controversial events of the final fatal moments – forms the central part of an important and moving new book, Between Blade & Bullet: The Mary Steinhauser Story, by Steinhauser’s only sibling, Margaret Franz of Port Coquitlam.

More than that, the book is also a heartfelt biography of a woman whose commitment to service and justice is richly and lovingly described by her sister. Steinhauser’s story is, without a doubt, one that should be more widely celebrated. “Did Mary die in vain?” Franz writes. “The answer, of course, is ‘No.’ Mary is a hero.”

Steinhauser’s story is also one that has special meaning for me. My first field assignment as a professional reporter was to cover Steinhauser’s funeral, which was held five days after her death, at Blessed Sacrament Church in Vancouver. I recall feeling a great sense of responsibility, but also somewhat overwhelmed, as I hurriedly took notes describing the many uniformed mourners, the flowers, and the funeral Mass homily.

Months later, I wrote my graduating research paper for my honours degree in journalism about the scrupulous way my new colleagues at The Canadian Press had covered the dramatic events of June 9 to 11. I was proud to report that it was a CP reporter who had broken the shocking news that Steinhauser had been killed, not by the prisoner’s knife that was held to her throat throughout the ordeal, but by a guard’s bullets.

Like the public and the rest of the press, I knew little about Steinhauser at the time. Franz’s engaging and well-illustrated book fills in the blanks. It describes the sisters’ upbringing in Lake Cowichan and Burton (in the Kootenays) where, although poor in material things, the sisters enjoyed a rich family life.

Also recounted are details of Steinhauser’s post-secondary education, and her commitment to her ever-more demanding and meaningful work as a psychiatric nurse, social worker, and prison-classification officer.

The book also describes in disturbing fashion the shocking evidence made public during a formal Commission of Inquiry into the hostage-taking and, later, a coroner’s inquest into Steinhauser’s death, including unrefuted evidence that the tactical squad deliberately covered up who was responsible for firing the fatal bullets.

Particularly alarming are unproven allegations, made by an ambulance driver who said he overheard a conversation among guards, that Steinhauser was deliberately killed, presumably because, as a prisoners’-rights advocate and staunch justice-system reformer, she had made herself an enemy of the guards’ old boys network.

Yet, for every troublesome fact, Franz relates an inspiring one. She describes how, on several occasions, the hostage-takers gave her sister the opportunity to leave. She declined, saying she did not want to abandon her colleagues.

Of special note is Franz’s belief that her sister’s commitment to “justice and fairness” can be attributed, in part, to their Catholic upbringing. “Our parents were devoutly Catholic and raised us in a strict but non-oppressive environment,” Franz writes. A priest visited Burton only twice a month, and the Steinhauser family, always dressed in their Sunday best, faithfully trekked the mile and a quarter to their community’s little church for Sunday Mass.

“Occasionally in the summer, visiting nuns from other parts of the province would come to our community and have summer day camps to teach catechism classes,” Franz writes. “Going to confession was a requirement as a kind of purification of the soul to be able to take communion. This bi-monthly self-inquisition forced us to be brutally honest with ourselves. To my knowledge, Mary never lied or deliberately told an untruth.”

Franz said in an interview with The B.C. Catholic that Steinhauser attended Sunday Mass well into adulthood.  Looking back at the whole of her sister’s life, Franz said that, in her mind, Mary was a modern-day St. Joan of Arc. “She didn’t have an army, but she was a real crusader,” Franz said. “And she was very driven by a sense of justice and fair play, and humanity and compassion. I see her as a warrior for justice.”

In 2011, Franz established the Mary Steinhauser Memorial Bursary at Simon Fraser University, where the sisters took classes in the late 1960s. I am donating the payment I receive for writing this review, to the bursary fund. It seems only fitting. https://secure.give.sfu.ca/donate. 

Franz has a website margaretfranz01.wixsite.com/mysite with more information about her sister. 

Between Blade & Bullet:  The Mary Steinhauser Story
Publication Date: Late April 2021
Publisher: FriesenPress