The Unrepentant Abortionist Who Defiantly Fought San Francisco Authorities

Assisting her at the clinic was a discreet team of nurses and a utility man named Joe Hoff — a former bellboy Inez had befriended at the Palace Hotel. Hoff also assisted Inez in scaring off mobsters who sporadically attempted to extort her. Inez’s business was widely considered to be the worst-kept secret in San Francisco, but making weekly payoffs to SFPD officers and politicians kept her doors open. Inez also kept a list of trustworthy physicians on call who could assist her with procedures that resulted in complications.

Inez’s services came at a price. Officially, abortions performed by her within the first eight weeks of pregnancy cost $50 (about $880 in today’s money). After that, services went up to $80 (about $1400 now). Despite this, many patients found Inez willing to perform procedures for whatever amount of money they had on hand. For truly dire cases, she charged nothing at all. In one case, she handed a patient with six children in an envelope of money and advised her to leave her husband.

Still, Inez was making more money than she knew what to do with. With most procedures taking just 15-20 minutes, she quickly amassed a fortune. She built a home at 274 Guerrero St. — an address that delighted Inez because 274 happened to be the California penal code that outlawed abortion. Inez also purchased properties around the city (including one on Waller Street that doubled as a recovery center) and in La Honda and San Mateo County. She used five different aliases to do so.

The Guerrero Street home that Inez Burns kept until 1973. (Rae Alexandra)

Inez enjoyed living lavishly, with a lively social life and fierce shopping habit. She bought a limo and hired a driver, doted on her two Pomeranians and kept regular appointments with astrologers. She underwent three plastic surgery operations: one to remove two ribs, another to remove the bones in her pinky toes and finally a facelift in her later years. Still, Inez had so much cash, she took to sewing money into drapes, burying it in lockboxes and hiding it in secret panels around her properties.

As Inez’s business grew, so did complications in her love life. She married William Brown in 1915, after having a son (also named William) with him. After Brown died in 1921, Inez married Charlie Granelli, with whom she had a daughter, Alice. In 1927, while Granelli was out of the country on business, Inez fell in love with an assemblyman named Joe Burns. By then, because Inez was already an infamous figure in the city, the love triangle made for salacious headlines. Inez was granted a divorce from Granelli in May 1928 and went on to marry Burns in 1932. The couple stayed together for the rest of their lives, though the relationship was frequently an open one in which fiery disagreements were not uncommon.

I

nez’s legal troubles started in 1936, when her financial situation finally came under scrutiny by the authorities. Still, she proved to be a slippery woman to pin down. She had so many informants scattered around the city, she got tipped off and was able to clear her properties before every raid. On one occasion, Inez was so indignant when police arrived that she kicked an inspector in the shins. Efforts to hold her legally accountable after one successful 1938 raid were thought by the fact that former patients steadfastly refused to assist investigators.

In October 1939, Inez was finally indicted for tax evasion by a grand jury, for the years 1935 and 1936. She pleaded guilty and was fined $10,000, plus an undisclosed additional sum to settle the case. At the time, Judge Harold Louderback noted: “Never in my history on the federal bench has so little information been given the court. For some reason, there seems to be a great reluctance to tell what Mrs. Burns’ business was.” (Her business cards described her only as a “Designer.”)