Page 36 - March 2022

Real Women Wear Badges
Their Way
From left, Stefany, Trysha and Ziola Solis are a CPD mother-daughter trio.
n BY ESTHER GONZALES
Really, Mom, you’re going to become a Chicago Police Officer? With five kids? And you’re going to be working where? In 011. Isn’t that one of the most crime-rid- den districts in the City?
Maybe the conversation didn’t go ex- actly like that when Ziola Solis decided to come on the job. But after raising her kids for 10 years, she did go to the acade- my. And she did wind up working in 011, the start of an anything-is-possible ca- reer that ended when she retired on Feb. 15 after 25 years.
Her children might not have fully un- derstood what mom was doing.
“I don’t think I really got the full effect of it until I got on the job and I saw what she actually experienced,” Trysha re- marked. “I didn’t realize how dangerous it could be. I just knew that there was a possibility of danger. I just didn’t have a full grasp of it as a teenager.”
Apparently, Ziola made such an im- pact that Trysha, too, became a Chica- go Police Officer and now works in 018. So did her older sister, Stefany, who fol- lowed her mom to 011.
The Solis family might very well be a
microcosm of the evolution of women on the job. As a mother-daughter trio, Zi- ola, Stefany and Trysha Solis have forged a one-of-a-kind legacy as female officers, encountering the changing perceptions of women working in the Department.
“I think we’re representing the best way that we can,” Trysha remarked. “We can do everything that the men can do just as well or even better. It’s a sense of pride and joy. I absolutely love it.”
As teenagers, Trysha and Stefany learned to adapt to the many changes brought about by their mother enter- ing the working world. Although Ziola did not talk about her work much, her daughters knew she loved it and that it was something she was proud of.
Adjusting to a new life was something Ziola had to learn alongside her daugh- ters. She worked long weekends and found creative ways to celebrate holi- days with her family to balance the new situation.
“It was hard,” Ziola admitted, “be- cause the girls were just starting high school and I was learning this new career and this different way of life, really.”
Ziola’s greatest motivation as an of- ficer was helping others, and her nur-
36 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MARCH 2022
Ziola Solis and daughters Stefany and Trysha forge a historic legacy for the Chicago Police Department