Orfa Jean Shontz

Orfa Jean Shontz (November 1, 1876 – May 6, 1954) was an American attorney and Municipal Judge. She was the first female referee of the Juvenile Court of Los Angeles County. She was the first female in California to "sit on the bench and administer justice".

Early life Orfa Jean Shontz was born on November 1, 1876, in Avoca, Iowa, the daughter of Benjamin Biehn Shontz and Jean Anderson Collins. She was the seventh of eight children. Her father was born in Plattsville, Ontario, Canada and was of German Mennonite descent. Her mother was born in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and was of Scottish descent.

She graduated from Ames College (now Iowa State University)

Career

From 1911 to 1914, while still a law student, she became one of the first female probation officers of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court.

In 1920 she was named City Clerk of Los Angeles but resigned soon to enter private law practice.

Memberships Shontz sat on the board of directors of the Woman's Athletic Club. She was also president of the Business and Professional Woman's Club and a member of the board of managers of the Los Angeles Business Girls' Club. In the 1920s Shontz, Van Waters, Van Waters' friends Sara Fisher and Emily "Pole" Reynolds, a teacher of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Elizabeth "Bess" Woods, founder of the educational-research department for the Los Angeles Board of Education, all lived in a group of residences called the Colony, between Los Angeles and Pasadena. When the Colony burned down, Van Waters, Woods, and Shontz rented a house in Glendale that they called the "Stone House".