Maxine Lane-Seals and Nancy Sims, professor of political science at the University of Houston, remember Sheila Jackson Lee after her death

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee is being remembered by those who knew her after losing her battle with pancreatic cancer on Friday.

Jackson-Lee has represented Texas’ 18th Congressional District for the past 29 years and was running for her 16th term.

“To most people, she was Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, to me, she’s my aunt – my Aunt Sheila,” said Lawrence Bell, who has known Jackson-Lee forever.

Jackson-Lee and his mother were in the same sorority, and he spent much of his childhood campaigning for re-election to Congress.

“If I could put Dr. X, Magneto, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman into one character, I would get Sheila,” Bell said.

Maxine Lane-Seals met Jackson-Lee in 1980, before she had been elected to anything.

“She’s the hardest-working politician I’ve ever seen,” Lane-Seals said.

SEE ALSO: Tribute to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: Community leaders react to congresswoman’s passing

Jackson-Lee’s first three bids for judgeship failed before she was appointed municipal judge in 1987.

In 1989, she won a seat on the Houston City Council, becoming the first African-American woman elected to municipal office.

Nancy Sims, a political science professor at the University of Houston, advised Jackson-Lee in that council race.

“She hired me because men didn’t want to work for her and there weren’t a lot of options,” Sims said.

Sims said Jackson-Lee took up the baton for women’s rights after she was elected to Congress in 1994.

She led the charge to renew the Violence Against Women Act.

She also pushed for legislation to prosecute police misconduct and sponsored the bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday.

“He’s a person who just has to be on the field, who has to work,” Lane-Seals said.

Friends of Jackson-Lee say her frequent appearances at funerals and church services in her district are testament to that.

“Sheila, you can be sure that if you call her, she will be there,” Lane-Seals said.

Seals, who has served on the North Forest ISD school board since the 1980s, said she is very grateful for Jackson-Lee’s efforts to save the school district, even though it was ultimately disbanded in 2013.

“Sheila was the only one – I want to say this loud and clear – the only elected official who stood up and supported this community,” Lane-Seals said.

Jackson-Lee was 74.

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