Geneva Malenfant, 70; helped shape modern Cambridge

But it would be fair to say that over more than four decades, many of the solutions were hatched there when Mrs. Malenfant gathered officials and neighbors to exchange ideas over one of her sumptuous repasts.

"Geneva's kitchen was action central," said City Councilor Henrietta Davis.

Former mayor Francis H. Duehay told the Cambridge Chronicle: "In a variety of ways both substantive and subtle, Geneva Malenfant was an architect of the current Cambridge."

"She was the builder of networks among people, institutions, neighborhoods, and government. In a city complicated by fierce competing interests, she sought to achieve greater parity for affordable housing and neighborhood stability through appropriate planning and zoning."

After mourning Mrs. Malenfant's death of acute renal failure at 70 on Jan. 25 at Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge plans to celebrate her life tomorrow.

Her goal in life, said her daughter, Nancy Berman of Bedford, N.H., was "to make Cambridge a place where people could come together in a community. Mother always said, "You can't complain if you don't get involved.' "

Published profiles of Mrs. Malenfant's role as peacemaker and city booster are scarce, Davis said, "because Geneva never put herself in the foreground. She was extraordinarily energetic and positive, a problem-solver and visionary about the city. She saw change coming in Cambridge and saw the opportunities for the city to grow."

She also was politically savvy and technologically knowledgeable.

She had been a member of the Cambridge Planning Board in the 1980s, "sort of a professional planner without [a] portfolio," Davis said.

One of her great passions was affordable housing. Peter Daly, executive director of Homeowners Rehab Inc. spoke of her "knack for cutting through the layers of complexity that seem to cloud affordable housing issues and summarize and present them in a way that would always result in consensus."

She also was one of the city's premier nonprofit consultants, and all her work for the city was volunteered. "Geneva inspired people to care about their city," said longtime Cambridge friend Decia Goodwin.

In Cambridge, there was little going on that Mrs. Malenfant didn't know about.

Perhaps her greatest achievement, Duehay said in the Chronicle, was the rezoning of Cambridgeport.

"Her deft orchestration of the Planning Board, City Council, MIT, business, neighborhood, and community forces resulted in the City Council's adoption of a systematic plan which is being implemented as we speak and will play out for years to come."

"For the city's and the neighborhood's benefit, that plan achieved more open space; more affordable housing; more rational demarcation between institutional, business, and neighborhood use; and clarity for business development resulting in huge growth in the tax base," Duehay said.

Catherine Donaher of Brookline, a real estate development consultant who worked on many projects with Mrs. Malenfant, said the rezoning project was "a visible testimony to her work, that she could see how a major artery that went from the BU Bridge to Central Square "could be transformed from a kind of 19th-century industrial area to a vital residential district."

"Geneva was fabulous," Donaher said. "She had a very vivid grasp of the substance of land use and a personal manner that allowed her in very controversial circumstances to bring insights . . . to move decision to a constructive place. She was a win-win person."

Geneva (Tallman) Malenfant arrived in Cambridge in 1963, when her husband, Arthur Lewis Malenfant came to MIT to work on his engineering doctoral degree. The couple had been high school sweethearts in Wakefield, R.I., where Mrs. Malenfant was born.

In 1957, after a year at Middlebury College, she left to marry Arthur. Years later, after three of her children were born, she enrolled at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, earning her bachelor's degree in 1977.

They were a perfect couple but were different, Davis said. "Geneva was a staunch Democrat. Arthur was one of the 1,200 Republicans [then] in Cambridge. He went to work in a suit every day. Geneva worked [on her civic projects] at home in farmer's overalls, her salt-and-pepper hair loose. She would be making hundreds of phone calls to build a consensus on some issue, and volunteers would be around the table stuffing mailings."

Her activism was easy to understand, said her son, Gavin of Cambridge. "Mother believed that everyone had a responsibility to improve life, even at home. While there were six of us, the one thing everyone of us had was a little job. Mother's attitude was that everyone has something to contribute to society no matter how small or how large."

The youngest Malenfant child, Joanna Fischer of Cambridge, recalled as a 4-year-old going to Riverside Cambridgeport Community Cooperative meetings with her mother, where the RCCC hoped to come up with physically and financially affordable housing.

She continued to attend meetings with her mother into her teenage years and saw what other people liked in her. "Mother was not a wishy-washy woman, and people appreciated her straightforwardness," she said.

In 1985, Mrs. Malenfant resigned from various city boards to run for City Council but was defeated. Many were relieved because that meant she would be back in the fray.

She returned to all the boards and committees from which she had resigned and brought city officials and residents together again at her popular New Year's Day parties.

Arthur Malenfant died in 2002. Though Mrs. Malenfant continued her work, friends saw the pain of her loss, while still remaining as active as she could.

Until two months before she died, she was volunteering with Cambridge Community Foundation, which raises money for the community that goes into an endowment to give grants to about 200 human service groups. Bob Hurlbut, its executive director, said Mrs. Malenfant served it as an overseer, vice president, and a member of many committees.

"Geneva particularly loved our Agenda for Children, which addresses their literacy needs," he said. He recalled how he would go and sit with her in her backyard and "talk about the wonders and the hurdles we had to get over to get good things done for Cambridge," he said.

Besides her son and two daughters, she leaves another daughter, Elizabeth Paden of Cambridge, and eight grandchildren.

The service will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow in Harvard Epworth United Methodist Church in Cambridge.