Event Coverage

Jackie Speier Shares Her Life with SAMCAR Members

When life deals you several blows like it did Jackie Speier, many of us would like to just crawl in a hole and give up. But by example, Speier has taught us “we really do have to move on … Life goes on, no matter what happens.”

When former California State Senator and San Mateo County Supervisor Jackie Speier shared the highlights and the dark moments of her life with SAMCAR members on Tuesday, many in the room were teary-eyed. Before serving in public office, Speier was a congressional staff person for Congressman Leo Ryan. She was part of the November 1978 fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by the Reverend Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple followers in Jonestown when, upon boarding the plane to leave Jonestown, the investigative team was fired at by Jones' followers. Five people died, including Ryan. Speier was shot five times. Draped in the American flag and lying on an ant hill, she waited 22 hours for help to arrive.

“Over the course of those 22 hours, I had a lot of time to think. I had this will to live. … There’s never a time when I say the pledge and think how lucky we are to be living here. How lucky we are to be Americans,” Speier said.

Speier survived the ordeal and after two months and 10 surgeries, she decided she could no longer be a victim. The experience strengthened her commitment to serve, so she campaigned to fill the vacancy left by Congressman Ryan after his murder, but she lost. Undaunted, Speier ran for San Mateo County Supervisor and was elected in 1980, winning the race by 18,000 votes. She was re-elected in 1984.

“The experience taught me that failure is never final. It taught me you can overcome virtually anything,” she said. “In life you got to take risks if there’s something you believe in.”

At that point, with Tuesday being Election Day, Speier encouraged SAMCAR members to go out and vote. “Those votes do count,” she said.
After two terms in the Board of Supervisors, Speier won her bid to the California State Senate by just a few hundred votes in 1986. She served 10 years. 

At that time, she noted, “Life was sweet.”

Speier and her husband Steve had one son and decided they would like to have another baby. What followed were two miscarriages, one which was especially painful, and a succession of fertility treatments. In between, they had also tried to adopt a child, but the adoption failed – yet another painful blow in their lives. But Speier continued with her life and launched a campaign to be elected Secretary of State. Three months later, she became pregnant. The couple was ecstatic. Since it was a high-risk pregnancy, Speier withdrew from the campaign. Three months into her pregnancy, while en route to Sacramento, Speier received an emergency phone call – her husband had been in a car accident. She rushed to his side, and he died a few hours later. Life dealt her yet another blow

There she was widowed with a five and a half year old, pregnant with her second child, and since she was termed out of office and had abandoned her campaign for the Secretary of State seat, she had no job and was financially destroyed. After months of feeling down and sorry for herself, her parents told her, “Get over it.”

“It was the best advice they could give me,” she said.

So she rounded friends who could help her – a lawyer, a Realtor, an accountant. With their help she was able to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. She sold everything, including her home and spent the next eight years as a single mother supporting her two children.

Eventually, life turned around. Spier is now remarried and is a practicing real estate attorney. She is considering a bid for Congress because she wants to continue to help people of this state.

One can’t help but admire Jackie Speier when you hear her story. Through all the trials and tribulations she has endured and as she puts it, managed to “survive and thrive.”

In This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down, a  collaborative non-fiction inspirational self-help book Speier has co-authored with close friends Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risley and Jan Yanehiro, she writes, “I want women to remember when life leaves them alone in the tarmac – whether it be the devastating loss of a loved one, the shattering of a lifelong dream, the loss of a job, or events that turn the world upside down – women can always learn to walk again. I am living proof that women can reinvent and rebuild their lives, no matter what hardships they have faced.”

It’s a message we can all take home with us.

The San Mateo County Association of REALTORS® (SAMCAR) is a professional trade organization representing over 3,800 REALTORS® and Affiliate members engaged in the real estate business on the Peninsula. SAMCAR promotes the highest ethical standards of real estate practice, serves as an advocate for homeownership and homeowners, and represents the interests of property owners in San Mateo County.

The term "REALTOR®" is a registered collective membership mark which identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and who subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

For further information, please contact Julie Ziemelis, Director of Public Affairs, e-mail , or phone (650) 696-8214.

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