“Wit, Wisdom and Strength,” are the words engraved on Rose Silver’s tombstone in a Tucson cemetery. That saying aptly describes the petite woman who became the first female attorney for Pima County, and the woman who dared to defend the notorious criminal, John Dillinger — and win her case.
Rose Sosnowsky was born in Austria on June 10, 1908. Just a few years later, her parents immigrated to the U.S., leaving their daughter in the care of her maternal grandmother. Rose did not see her parents again until she was 10 years old.
Yet she was far from idle during those formative years.
Rose’s grandmother took her to Paris, Russia, Turkey and England. At every destination, Rose went to school. By the time she was reunited with her parents in Detroit, she understood Hebrew, French, Russian and English. Not bad for a 10-year-old.
Rose’s father insisted his daughter obtain the best education possible and expected Rose to achieve the highest grades. He encouraged her to go to law school since that required a 4-year degree as opposed to a 2-year teaching program.
By this time, Rose had met her future husband, James J. Silver, although it would be several years before they married. She enrolled in the University of Detroit while James entered medical school. But when James became ill with tuberculosis, he was advised to go west for his health. Rose bundled him up and arrived in Tucson in August 1927.
James’ health improved rapidly, and the following year, the couple married. Over the years, they had 5 children.
Rose expected to continue her law education at the newly formed University of Arizona School of Law. But when she applied, one of the professor’s informed her, “We don’t want women in the law school.” She was admitted because of her excellent grades, the only woman in her class.
Finally, in about her third year at school, one of her professors lauded her performance. “You think just like a man,” he said, never realizing how demoralizing the comment was.
“As a professional woman,” Rose claimed, “you have to be twice as good and twice as prepared.”
Passing the bar in 1931, Rose quickly realized no one would hire a female attorney. As one reporter admitted, “women lawyers were about as much in demand as day-old tacos.”
One law firm that refused to hire her said it “would have to put you somewhere in a back room where the public wouldn’t see you. The public isn’t going to stand for a woman lawyer.”
She rented space in a building next to a criminal attorney and took any case that walked through the door. Most of her clients were bootleggers who had been caught running stills. The men readily admitted to having stills, but Rose argued the police had entered the defendants’ homes without warrants. The cases were almost always dismissed.
Rose’s claim to fame occurred when John Dillinger sought her help after his arrest in Tucson for the murder of an Ohio couple.
Dillinger had $20,000 on him at the time, and an insurance company claimed the money belonged to them from a bank robbery Dillinger had perpetrated. Rose won the case arguing there was no proof where the money came from.
Grateful for her help, Dillinger paid her fee and gave her his new car since he would not be needing it where he was going.
“I would take the children and their friends around in that car,” Rose said in a 1984 interview. “And pretty soon the upholstery got dirty with mustard and ketchup and whatever you buy for children at the hamburger stands.” She sent the car to an upholsterer to replace the stained seats.
One day, the upholsterer called Rose and told her she had better come and look at what he had found in the car. When she got there, she discovered “the whole back was taken out . . . and it was loaded with all kinds of machine guns and stuff.”
Turning over the ill-gotten loot to the Treasury Department, Rose claimed agents followed her around for the next five years. “They thought maybe I was a moll of Dillinger’s.”
James Silver also turned to the law, and the couple eventually opened their own firm.
With five youngsters of her own, Rose would advocate for anyone who wanted to help ill children. A man who wanted to start a private school for asthmatic children had found a big house that was perfect for his project, but he was told zoning regulations prohibited him from operating a business in a residential neighborhood.
It took extensive research but Rose finally discovered that the house at one time had been used as a boarding house. Arguing the zoning restriction had already been violated, Rose pleaded with the judge, “Make a landmark decision to keep families together, to help cure sick children and you have the power to do it.”
Rose, once again, won her case.
In 1962, Rose was appointed to the staff of the Pima County Attorney’s Office and in 1969 she became the first female Pima County attorney, serving until 1972.
Appointed legal adviser to the Pima County Board of Supervisors in 1973, Rose was offered a salary that was $7,000 less than her male predecessor.
Rose was a popular and avid speaker and readily addressed students along with organizations such as the Urban League, YWCA and the National Organization for Women. She donated her time and voice to recording audiotapes for the blind.
John Silver died in 1975. Rose continued to work as her children set off on their own. She once told a reporter that she never took more than 10 days off from work to have each of her children and when she was so pregnant she “couldn’t walk up the stairs anymore, the judges held court in the patio.” She was named Tucson’s Mother of the Year in 1960.
Rose died December 12, 1994. “For some reason,” Rose once said, my father thought I could move mountains, and he made me move them.”
