Pioneering South Bay leader dies at 90
SAN JOSE >> Former Santa Clara County supervisor and San Jose councilwoman Susanne B. Wilson, a trailblazer for local women in elected office, died Wednesday afternoon at her home in San Jose. She was 90.
Wilson, who went by Susie, was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, and her condition worsened in recent weeks, according to her youngest son David Wilson.
“She fought a really hard fight these last few weeks,” said daughter-inlaw Linda Wilson.
Susanne Wilson was elected to the San Jose City Council in 1973 during an era when Santa Clara County was known as the political feminist capital of the world. Two years later San Jose Mayor Janet Hayes became the first woman elected mayor of a major American city, and by 1981 women held a majority of seats on both the San Jose City Council and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.
Wilson served on the council until 1978, and was a county supervisor for District 1 from 1979 to 1991.
She was born in Gonzales, Texas on Sept. 30, 1928 and moved to California in 1961 after her husband Bob was discharged from the U.S. Navy.
Before becoming involved in politics, she was a longtime volunteer for the Silicon Valley YWCA, a group dedicated to empowering women, at first teaching sewing classes, later chairing a YWCA fundraiser to construct the Villa Nueva apartments for low-income families.
The apartments were named after Wilson when they opened in 1995, and the group now has a scholarship in her name.
Sarah Janigian, a former aide to Wilson when she was a council member and supervisor, said she was interviewed by Wilson for her first political job on a park bench at the
Santa Clara County Fair. Wilson mentored many of the women now holding elected office countywide, Janigian said.
“The fact that there are so many women in politics serving in our community is a testament to her,” Janigian said. “She’s grace filled, she was tough, she was fair — a real trailblazer.”
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, served with Wilson as a county supervisor.
“None of us in public life can say, ‘I did all of this,’ because it’s a group effort, but Susie played a key role in the protection of Valley Medical Center,” Lofgren said Wednesday evening. “From a time when the then-county executive wanted to close the facility, to today when it’s probably the best hospital in the county, she played a huge role in that.”
At a meeting on Nov. 6, the Board of Supervisors named the Women and Children’s Center at Valley Medical Center after Wilson, noting her role as a supervisor in stabilizing the hospital’s finances and her later work creating a foundation for the hospital.
Valley Medical Center, where Wilson recently received treatment for her cancer, is the county’s only safety net hospital, meaning the facility provides healthcare regardless of an individual’s insurance coverage
or ability to pay.
“She dedicated her life to making sure people have a fair chance to succeed, especially in the healthcare arena,” Lofgren said.
If a diehard feminist and liberal, Wilson was also known for brokering deals and getting things done, Lofgren said.
“She understood if you got 90 percent of what you wanted, you won,” Lofgren said.
Former county supervisor Rod J. Diridon Sr. said he and Wilson were almost identical in their political views, but she was formidable the times they did clash.
“She was the quintessential iron fist in the velvet glove,” Diridon said. “And about the time any of the board members took themselves too seriously, she’d poke a hole in that balloon.”
Wilson’s family plans to hold a public service early next month at Cambrian Park Methodist Church, where she had been a member since settling in San Jose.
Wilson is survived by her three sons, Bill, Rob and David; her three daughters-inlaw, Viki, Tracy and Linda; and seven grandchildren.
David Wilson said as a child it did not strike him just how much work his mother had done for the community.
“She was a real yellow rose of Texas,” he said. “But a Democrat — not a Republican.”