Jessie Sargent, at 92; helped broaden role of governor's wife

Jessie Sargent described the years her husband, Francis W. Sargent, was in office in her memoir, ''The Governor's Wife.'' (The Boston Globe/file 1974)

Jessie Fay Sargent called her memoir "The Governor's Wife" and added the subtitle "A View from Within," though she made it clear that during the years her husband was in office, she spent as much time being viewed as she did training her penetrating gaze on those around her.

"I couldn't help but be concerned, on that cold January day, when my husband was sworn into office," she began her 1973 book. "Now that he was governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts I was no longer a private citizen."

Instead of retreating into a routine of superficial appearances, she used the power that came with her name to draw attention to social ills and to help steer funding toward organizations such as those that promoted affordable housing and assistance for the homeless.

"When groups invite a governor's wife," she told the Globe in 1971, "it ought to be to do something, not just to bring another pair of white gloves."

Mrs. Sargent, who often preferred the quiet scratch of charcoal on paper to the noisy drumbeat of political life, died in her sleep Aug. 15 in the Clark House Nursing Center at Fox Hill Village in Westwood. She was 92 and had lived in Dover for many years.

"I had been studying art, drawing mostly in charcoal, and was then, and am now, a frustrated portrait painter," she wrote while her husband, Francis W. Sargent, was governor. "I still find myself staring at people, drawing them mentally even after six years when I've no longer had the time to study. Often I sit down and draw, and suddenly the person's character is there. I suppose I see people through the eyes of an artist."

She, in turn, was often seen through the viewfinder of a camera. "Prominent Debutante," read the headline over a 1934 photo in the Boston Traveler. The following year, a photo showed her and a friend in uniform for a newly formed Milton Academy alumnae field hockey club. When she married Frank Sargent in 1938, a newspaper photographed the couple and 19 attendants.

All that was prelude to 1966, when her husband was elected lieutenant governor and moved into the governor's office three years later and served until 1974.

"I think she probably went through a fair amount of trepidation, because she was basically a very private person," Bill Sargent of Ipswich said of his mother. "She kind of put on a good face and went along with it. But once she got into office, she began to enjoy it, because she was in a unique position to get things done."

In the introduction to Mrs. Sargent's memoir, her husband wrote: "My wife could have chosen to be the traditional 'first lady' of the Commonwealth and taken care of the social commitments that could have become full time. Jessie could have spent her time dining at the best luncheons, shopping at the finest stores, and traveling with women who would like to do the same. Instead, Jessie has newly defined the role of governor's wife."

Along with helping launch the Doric Dames, a group of volunteers that led tours of the State House, Mrs. Sargent "really covered a broad spectrum of social and health-related areas," her son said. "She dealt with prison reform, drug addiction, homelessness, deinstitutionalization. And she became quite hands-on, as well."

Mrs. Sargent's husband, a liberal Republican who died in 1998, was an environmentalist who rankled members of his party by forming alliances with Democrats so he could sign 1,000 bills while in office, halt the construction of expressways inside Route 128, and push for prison reform. He valued his wife's counsel.

"Jessie has never been a silent partner," he wrote in the introduction to her book. "She expresses her opinions, and I have little difficulty knowing where she stands. Her reasoning is good enough to give me a run for my money."

Nevertheless, she wrote, "as governor's wife, I am never in a position to raise a shrill voice. My efforts are often low-keyed and behind the scenes."

Jessie Fay was born in Wellesley and spent a year at a high school in La Jolla, Calif., before returning home to attend Milton Academy.

Although she is most remembered for her years as a gubernatorial spouse, Mrs. Sargent believed that an earlier event was more defining.

"Many people have turning points in their lives," she wrote in her memoir. "When I think back, mine seemed to come fairly late. I was mountain climbing before my husband was an elected official."

After learning to climb at the school of famed mountaineer Glenn Exum, she joined a group that ascended Grand Teton, the tallest mountain in the Teton Range outside Jackson, Wyo., in August 1960. Just after beginning to descend from the peak, she fell and badly broke an ankle.

"I suddenly felt myself falling," Mrs. Sargent wrote. "It was not until much later than I learned I had come 15 feet through the air, head first."

Leaving one guide to care for her as she lay on a mountain ledge, the rest of the group descended to get help, and she spent a chilly night above 13,000 feet. The next day, a rescue team strapped her tightly into a carrying basket and brought her partway down the mountain to a place where a helicopter could land.

"Something rubbed off on me from those seven men, who at the drop of a hat, risked their lives to save someone that most of them had never seen before," she wrote. "Not many people can rescue others from a mountain, but we do have opportunities perhaps not as dramatic, but no less meaningful, to help those around us every day."

For Mrs. Sargent, that meant trying to infuse seriousness into a position many considered ceremonial. During an interview with a Globe reporter in 1970, she gave this response to a question about how she and the governor had met: "I honestly can't remember." When the reporter asked again, she said: "Why do interviews always start with this question?"

Writing in her memoir, Mrs. Sargent recalled a dinner with Betty Friedan, the feminist and writer, who "pegged me as a 'half-liberated woman,' a victim of my time and position."

"In the years since my husband has been governor, I've tried to change the role a governor's wife plays," she wrote later in the book. "I decided that I could never be passive in the curious position I was given."

In addition to her son, Mrs. Sargent leaves two daughters, Fay of Acton and Jay of Middleton, R.I.; three grandsons; two granddaughters; and six great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 4 in St. Andrew Episcopal Church in Wellesley. Burial will be private.