Joan L. Specter, former City Council member and wife of the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, has died at 90

Joan L. Specter, 90, a former Philadelphia City Council member, entrepreneur, gourmet baker, and wife of the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, died Saturday, June 29, of complications from dementia at her home at the Quadrangle in Haverford.

While she was well known as the wife of Arlen Specter, who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for 30 years before his death in 2012, Mrs. Specter also had a long career of her own as a cook, teacher, writer, radio host, and four-term member of City Council.

“She had a remarkably varied and successful career,” said her son Shanin, a lawyer in Philadelphia. “She was good at everything she did, whether it was the culinary arts or business or government, she was very talented.”

Mrs. Specter’s interest in culinary arts started after college when she studied with renowned chef, James Beard, in New York, at the Cordon Bleu in London, and at the Culinary Institute of America in Poughkeepsie, her family said.

She studied food science at Drexel University and started several cooking schools, hosted a radio program about food, and wrote a weekly food column for the Philadelphia Bulletin for 11 years.

Mrs. Specter, who made pies at home, started supplying bakeries and high-end restaurants like The Palm, and that led to a wholesale distribution business across 20 states and major supermarkets. The pies were billed as “America’s first gourmet frozen pies which require no baking, decorating or special preparations.”

After selling her business, Mrs. Specter, a Republican, ran for City Council in 1979 (featuring a recipe for caramel pineapple cake on one of her campaign fliers). According to her family, she told a newspaper at the time: “I’ve always been active with my husband in politics and decided, after 15 years of watching people walk to the front of a room and make their speeches, I had something to contribute, too.”

During her 16 years on City Council, Mrs. Specter focused on issues including day care, housing, child nutrition, and the arts. She pushed through an ordinance that made it illegal for the city to do business with companies that held memberships in private clubs that discriminated along racial or gender lines, and she was one of the first female members of the once all-male Boathouse Row clubs.

“She would sit in her office and she would read the newspapers — the out-of-town newspapers — and try to find out what was happening in cities across the country and try to bring the latest innovations to City Council,” Shanin Specter said. “Which was like trying to bring ice cubes to the beach … but she got a lot of things done.”

He said his mother was most proud of her efforts for equality for women and minorities. “She recognized that she was working in a city that was very diverse and that the values of the city should reflect this population,” he said.

In a statement Sunday, Council President Kenyatta Johnson said: “Her legacy has left a lasting impact on the city of Philadelphia.”

Former Rep. Bob Brady served in Council with Mrs. Specter when he was sergeant of arms. The Democrat said she was a rare ally on the other side of the political aisle who stood up for him when he was beginning his political career. Her bakery was also in his ward. “I would go all the time but I had to stop going because she would never charge me,” he said.

Mrs. Specter narrowly lost a reelection bid in 1996, finishing third behind W. Thacher Longstreth, an incumbent, and Frank Rizzo Jr., the son of the city’s late mayor, in the race to fill two minority party seats.

After her defeat, the Daily News’ Clout column dedicated an article to finding a new gig for the “stylish Republican Councilwoman at-large.” The 1996 column described her as someone who put forward “legislation that was ignored by the Democrats but sometimes later adopted and generally comported herself in a dignified way despite ridicule from oafish members of the majority party.”

After leaving City Council, Mrs. Specter worked as director of leadership gifts for the National Constitution Center, and was on the board of trustees at the Hazel K. Goddess Fund for Stroke Research and the Children’s Literacy Initiative.

Joan Levy was born in 1934 in Philadelphia, where she grew up in the Hill Creek housing project in Lawncrest. She graduated from Olney High School, where she was later inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. While still in high school in 1949 she met Arlen Specter at a fraternity party at the University of Pennsylvania. The two were married four years later and remained together until the senator’s death in 2012.

Mrs. Specter was committed to her Jewish faith and passionate about fitness: She was a runner and later a sculler before settling on golf, which she played into her 80s.

In a Washington Post profile quoted by the family, she reflected: “I’ve had a great life. I’ve always been able to do everything I’ve ever wanted. I’ve always known what I wanted to do.”

In addition to her son Shanin, Mrs. Specter is survived by another son, Steve; a brother, Barry Levy; and four granddaughters.

A celebration of her life will be held Tuesday, July 2, at 12:30 p.m. at Har Zion Temple,1500 Hagys Ford Rd., Penn Valley, Pa.