San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Devoted French teacher, union leader
When Joan-Marie Shelley became an honors French teacher at her alma mater, San Francisco’s prestigious Lowell High School, in the mid-1960s, it could have been her crowning achievement. What she did not know was that she was just beginning to leave her mark on public education in San Francisco.
She was always linguistic and bookish, but she was also the daughter of Jack Shelley, president of the California Federation of Labor and later a state senator, congressman and mayor of San Francisco.
She, in turn, became a union representative at Lowell on her way to being elected head of the San Francisco Federation of Teachers, the first woman to hold that post. From there, she engineered a merger with the San Francisco Classroom Teachers Association to form the United Educators of San Francisco in 1989, a powerful and influential union with 6,000 members.
“Joan brought a distinctive flair to union leadership,” said Dennis Kelly, retired president of United Educators of San Francisco. “The popular impression of unions is cigar-smoking men who made deals in backrooms. Joan was seen as not only ladylike, but very genteel.”
Shelley led the teachers union through four strikes. And even when Type 2 diabetes caused mobility issues and forced her to leave her apartment on Twin Peaks and move into an assisted living facility at Cypress at Golden Gate, she kept on organizing.
Her first cause was an unsuccessful fight for rent control for the residents at her facility. Her last cause was refusing to cross a picket line of striking workers when she was rushed to Kaiser San Francisco last month: She insisted on entering the hospital through a rear door. The workers were picketing out in front.
Shelley died Nov. 10 of heart failure and complications of diabetes, said her half brother Kevin Shelley, former California secretary of state. She was 88.
“Joan was an incredibly successful and driven personality with a very gentle soul,” he said, “and she loved to laugh.”
Joan-Marie Shelley was born June 15, 1933, the only child of John Francis Shelley and his first wife, Gwen Giles, who died in 1952. Her father rose from bakery truck driver to head of the San Francisco Labor Council, which represents public- and private-sector unions in the city. At age 29, he presided over the General Strike of 1934, which is infamous for a deadly shooting by police. “When Joan was young she used to go watch our dad at the labor council,” Kevin Shelley said. “She walked her first picket line at 11 or 12. That’s the environment she grew up in.”
The family bounced among neighborhoods, and Shelley attended John Muir Elementary School in the Western Addition, Sherman Elementary in Cow Hollow, Commodore Sloat Elementary in Balboa Terrace and Jefferson Elementary in the Inner Sunset, where one of her classmates was John Burton, future member of Congress, the state Assembly and the state Senate.
“Joan-Marie was very smart. She let me copy her homework,” Burton said. “Her father was a big shot. I was one of the few people who paid attention to that.”
After graduating from Lowell in 1950, Shelley entered Stanford University, where she became friends with another city girl — future Mayor and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Shelley earned her bachelor’s degree in French in 1954. After obtaining her teaching credential at San Francisco State College, she returned to Stanford for a master’s degree in French.
“She used to say that her father was amazed that a nice Irish girl would want to learn French,” said former colleague Sara Trelaun. “But she loved reading in French and teaching that love to her students.”
Her first job was at Lincoln High School in the Outer Sunset. From there she advanced to Lowell, which had recently moved from its brick campus near the Panhandle to a sprawling campus that backs up to the Stonestown shopping mall. The student body was so large that the graduation ceremonies
were held at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Shelley did what she could to give the venue some sophistication, imploring her her French students call it Le Palais des Vaches instead. Another favorite among students was “whoopsie marguerite,” her translation of “whoopsy daisy.”
“Joan-Marie spoke beautiful French,” said Trelaun, who lived most of her life in France and taught alongside Shelley at Lowell. Shelley was known to break down and cry in class when reading aloud in French from “The Little Prince.”
“The students loved her because she was so genuine and so emotional when she taught them, and the students liked that,” Trelaun said.
Shelley’s presence on campus was such that even students who never took her class knew who she was.
“She just radiated through the halls,” said Julie D. Soo, a former student of Shelley’s who graduated from Lowell in 1978. “Joan-Marie was like a ray of sunshine in the constant fog.
She’d walk down the hall saying ‘bonjour’ to everyone.”
Shelley walked the picket line on teachers strikes in 1968, 1971, 1974 and 1979.
During the last of these, after school officials made deep cuts to offset lost tax revenue following the passage of Proposition 13, she stood before a packed meeting in Kezar Pavilion and exclaimed, “We don’t have to to take this s— anymore.” According to Kelly, who was there, when Shelley used colorful language, the entire membership “gasped and went silent.”
“Joan-Marie was a public speaker like no other,” said Pam Clisham, who taught in the San Francisco Unified School District for 40 years. “She could be in a meeting with 400 people and you could call upon her and she’d stand up and deliver a speech with no notes.”
One of her better speeches was at a hearing before the Board of Supervisors. At the time, her younger brother was president of the board. She addressed him as Mr. President, and he addressed her back as Madame President.
Then she took over the board chamber.
“I couldn’t hold a candle to her,” Kevin Shelley said. “When she walked into a room you would just feel the presence.”
While serving 10 years as president of United Educators of San Francisco, Shelley was also vice president of both the California Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. In 1994, she was one of 10 leaders nationwide selected by the AFL-CIO to fly to South Africa and monitor the first free and fair election in that country.
After Shelley’s health began to decline, friends and colleagues formed the Friends of Joan-Marie as a support group. The group blossomed into a birthday party attended by 150 people at her assisted living facility on 19th Avenue, attended by fellow teachers, former students and union leaders. During testimonials, Shelley teared up though did not sob the way she used to while teaching “The Little Prince.”
“Joan-Marie was born into a labor family, and it showed — she was a staunch champion of labor and a lifelong Democrat,” said Feinstein, her old Stanford pal. “The passion that JoanMarie showed for improving the lives of working Americans, particularly teachers, is a model for us all.”
She is survived by her half sister, Kate Shelley, half brother, Kevin Shelley, and nephews Michael and Jack Shelley, all of San Francisco.
A memorial service is pending. Donations in her name may be made to the Lowell High School Student Body, Attention Maria Seeto, 1101 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132.