Jettie Pierce Selvig

December 16, 1932 - February 25, 2022

We have lost a trail blazing lady lawyer, incomparable mother and one of the kindest people most have ever been blessed to know. Our beloved Jettie passed away at her family home of 55 years on February 25th in Mill Valley at age 89.

Jettie was born during the great depression in Van Buren County, Arkansas on December 16, 1932. The daughter of sharecropper farmers, she spent her early childhood traveling between Arkansas and the California Central Valley. She cared for her baby sister, Dorothy, helped her mother, Ruba, feed the family and ranch hands and worked in the fields when needed.

At the age of fourteen, she left home with her mother and sister in tow and created a new life for them in Little Rock. She attended high school while working nights and weekends to help support her family. Upon high school graduation she was able to negotiate her acceptance directly into law school, graduating at twenty years of age, one year shy of being old enough to sit for the bar exam and worked in the State Attorneys General Office. She did shortly thereafter take and pass the Bar exam.

Joining a close friend, she traveled to San Francisco where she would take a position as a legal secretary for Melvin Belli and would go on to forge a lifelong professional relationship with the legal legend who took every chance to lavish praise on this bright and capable young attorney. She went on to become one of the finest lawyers in her field of supporting injured workers, championing equal rights for all and holding many executive positions in state and national organizations. All this while being a wife and raising three boys. A mother, grandmother, and role model to all, Jettie’s legacy will live on in the hearts of those she touched with her kindness, love and selfless support of those who she knew needed some help. The Selvig name lives on through her sons, daughter-in-laws and five grandchildren. She will be missed by her extended family and the near countless other children and friends that she would always welcome into the family home.

While Jettie is often admired for her tenacity, fortitude, and extraordinary intelligence, her greatest trait was how she loved. Jettie believed family was created not by blood, but by bond. There will be a celebration of life on May 14th at the Selvig residence.