Review Mistress Victoria Ama Zormelo-Gorleku was the first woman Prisons Officer in Ghana, and the first ordained woman priest in any of the established Mission Churches in Ghana.
Background
Victoria Ama Zormelo (affectionately called "Antima"), an Ewe, was the second daughter of Godfred Nyavor Zormelo, a former North German Mission employee and fishing magnate from Tegbi, and Emilia Tornyewonya Ablawo Tamakloe, a bread and cake seller.
Career
Educated at the local AME Zion school, she gained employment for the District Commissioner in 1927 and was the only woman to pass the Civil Service Entrance Examination in May 1927. Posted to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs at Accra, she gave up her job upon marriage to a Mr Godfred Gorleku of Adafoah, but was left widowed and pregnant within a year. Returning to work in 1932, for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs at Koforidua, she resigned again to marry a Mr George Kojo Deh of Leklebi, Dugah, a clerk in the District Commissioner"s Court, Koforidua, in a customary Ewe ceremony later that year, and had two more children.
Love-Grace Amedome Deh on October 31, 1933 and George Kojoga Deh on June 03, 1935.
She never did take her new husband"s name. Rising quickly through the ranks, she was transferred to the James Fort maximum security prison in Accra where she continued to excel, becoming the first female Prisons Superintendent, in November 1963.
Upon her retirement from the now Ghana Prisons Service in 1967, Victoria Zormelo-Gorleku trained for the Christian ministry and on 21 April 1970 she was ordained Deaconess by Bishop West. H. Hilliard, becoming the first woman priest of the AME Zion Church in Ghana.