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Photograph courtesy of Sunnyvale Historical Society

Edwina Benner served the first of her terms as Sunnyvale's mayor in 1924.

Council welcomes back Mayor Edwina Benner

State's first female mayor served on the council for 25 years

By Justin Berton

With a fur slung over her right shoulder and a string of pearls dangling from her neck, the first female mayor in California, Edwina Benner, made a posthumous appearance in Sunnyvale's City Council chambers to scold a few of the young'ns at the March 31 meeting.

"Jim Roberts," the former Sunnyvale mayor began, "you young whippersnapper. I sat on council with your grandfather.

"And you," Benner said as she pointed a crooked finger at city clerk Carol Butler. "I don't think you were here when I was here."

Butler certainly wasn't there.

Benner passed away in 1955. She would have been 113 years old this year.

Ann Hines, a Sunnyvale resident, first played the part of Benner last Sunday, when councilmembers Julia Miller and Pat Vorreiter attended a reception for women in government thrown by county Supervisor Joseph Simitian.

"We had so much fun doing it with Supervisor Simitian's office, we thought we'd do it again," Hines said.

The reception celebrated the 74 locally elected women as well as National Women's History Month and the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, which launched the women's rights movement.

Edwina Benner was born in 1885 at "Butcher's Corner," what's known today as the intersection of Fremont Avenue and Wolfe Road.

In 1909 she married Carson Benner, the town barber.

She took office as a councilmember in 1920, the same year the 19th amendment was ratified, giving all women in the country the right to vote.

Benner served four terms as mayor in a rotating council system, taking the office first in 1924 to become the state's first female mayor.

She served on the council--then known as the board of trustees--for 25 years, until 1945.

She also chaired the local branch of the American Red Cross and served as commissioner of finance and public works in Sunnyvale.

"Julia and I are humbled in her footsteps to sit on Sunnyvale's City Council," Vorreiter said.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 8, 1998.
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