For decades, Jean Becker 'kept the mayors in line'
As a secretary and assistant to seven mayors from 1960 to 1982, Jean Becker quietly kept City Hall running.
By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
Published April 28, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - On May 28, 1970, the secret about Jean Becker was revealed.
"She's been the real mayor of the city," Mayor Don Spicer said, standing with his predecessors, Ed Brantley, Don Jones and Herman Goldner. "(We're) pretenders."
Becker served as secretary and then assistant to seven mayors. If you wanted to see the mayor from 1960 to 1982, you probably saw her first.
She would prepare city budgets for approval. She understood the operation of a strong City Council and knew the city charter by heart.
The knowledge she gained from talking with residents molded her into an invaluable monitor of the city's pulse. Her research once saved the city thousands of dollars.
"She had great political instincts," said former Mayor C. Randolph Wedding, 70. "An observer. A great listener."
"Probably the most competent person I ever knew," former Mayor Corinne Freeman said. "She knew how to find the corpses. She was the top man."
Mary Jean Collins was born in Cincinnati on March 2, 1923. She came to Pinellas Park about age 8 and, after graduating from St. Petersburg High School in 1940, she spent a year at Bixby Business School. At some point, she dropped the name Mary, traveled north and married Ivan Becker in the mid 1940s.
In 1952, after several miscarriages, Becker gave birth to a son, Brian. She divorced about 1954. Before resettling here in the late 1950s, Becker explored the magazine and newspaper fields.
After working at Honeywell Inc., where she was cleared for secret projects, Becker became Brantley's secretary in 1960. "She took the job for me, to take care of me," said Brian Becker, 51.
At City Hall, "people respected her ability to convince others to see things the same way," her son said.
Irate residents also learned to respect Becker, such as the man who once slammed shoes down on her desk because a merchant wouldn't allow him to return them. "He wanted the mayor to do something about it," Becker later said. "(My) job is to keep the people happy."
In 1967, the city received a $4,000 membership invoice from the Florida League of Municipalities. The league's annual convention was looming; council had to respond.
"We have no alternative than to pay and go in good faith," said then-Vice Mayor Horace Williams Jr., grandson of founding father J.C. Williams.
That afternoon, Becker proved that St. Petersburg had paid that year's $1,000 dues for the league - before the $3,000 increase. "She ran the office and kept the mayors in line," Freeman said. On her 10th anniversary of service, Becker received a corsage from Brantley, Goldner, Jones and Spicer and was tagged the "real mayor." Jones, 70, recently said that Becker "was very helpful in getting me off to a good start."
"She was the mainstay that kept the Council going," said Schuh, 68, mayor from 1975 to 1977.
Wedding, mayor from 1973 to 1975, said Becker was Council's lamp into the past. "(Becker) had a long-running inventory in her head of what had gone on before. She was the repository of the Council's memory."
Becker, whom longtime co-worker Drina Butler called the "Rock of Gibraltar," considered her job constantly evolving. "Every time a new mayor comes in, it's a whole new ballgame," Becker said.
Becker died Sept. 20, 1982, at Bayfront Medical Center of cancer. She was 59. A royal palm tree later was added to North Shore Park's Gizella Kopsick Palm Arboretum in her memory.
