Thelma Shelley, 84; Civic Leader and Mother of California’s Embattled Secretary of State

Longtime civic leader Thelma Shelley -- widow of a San Francisco mayor and mother of Secretary of State Kevin Shelley -- died Friday in a San Francisco hospital after a brief illness, a spokesman for Kevin Shelley announced. She was 84.

Thelma Shelley, who helped run some of the city’s most important cultural institutions for two decades, had been hospitalized with pneumonia since Feb. 2.

Two days after that, her son announced his resignation, saying investigations into his personal conduct and official duties made it impossible to properly run California’s elections office. Friends of the elections chief said his mother’s illness figured in his decision to step down. His resignation is effective March 1.

As matriarch of a prominent San Francisco political family, Thelma Shelley had a career in government service and cultural institutions that spanned 45 years, and she was active in Democratic Party and women’s organizations.

Shelley was born in Fredonia, Kan., on Oct. 31, 1920. After her graduation from Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, she worked for the state Legislature, the California Judicial Council and Phil S. Gibson when he was chief justice of California.

In the early 1950s, she served as chief of staff to Rep. John F. Shelley (D-San Francisco), whom she eventually married. Her husband went on to become mayor of San Francisco, from 1964 until 1968, and they raised Kevin and his sisters in the city.

After she was widowed in 1974, Shelley held management posts in the mayor’s office, the San Francisco Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. In 1982, the county board of supervisors named her managing director of the center, which was home to the opera, symphony and modern art museum. She retired in 1998.

In addition to her son, she is survived by daughters Kate and Joan Marie, and two grandchildren.