Rosella Howe, 97; feminist, poet loved English language

When her husband was teaching journalism at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she was writing poetry. One stirred up a lot of talk on campus.

Written in 1975, “The Faculty Wife’’ highlights the back-seat status of the wife of a professor:

Once upon a time a dedicated woman married a professor whose profession was booming and all the way through her marital life she referred to herself as a faculty wife.

A linguist, Mrs. Howe was dedicated to the perfect use of the English language, an art she determined that her siblings, children, and grandchildren would also learn.

Mrs. Howe, a poet, feminist, and political adviser, died Sept. 10 at her Westport home of cardiovascular failure. She was 97.

She left Radcliffe College after two years but earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of Wisconsin in 1971, when she was 59.

Politically astute and a staunch Democrat, Mrs. Howe reached out to public figures who could help in the cause of women. She also advised them on campaign strategy.

One of them, US Representative Barney Frank, met her in 1982. He wrote her family on Sept. 17 that redistricting made him a candidate for reelection to Congress in a district that included Westport. (He was apprehensive about running in an area far from the one where he was well known.)

“Rosella would have none of my tentativeness or self-pity,’’ he wrote. “She made it very clear intellectually and by the force of her personality - a very elegant force, I should add - that I had a responsibility to continue to fight for the things I cared about, that she would be helpful to me, that that help would be of enormous value - it certainly was - and that neither she nor I could do anything less than our best, given the issues at stake.’’

Frank also wrote of her “obvious dedication to improving the lives of all people, “regardless of their station in life.

Younger women saw Mrs. Howe as a groundbreaker. “I really feel Rosella was a pioneer feminist,’’ said Emily Edwards of Westport, Mrs. Howe’s companion the last 20 years. “She loved to learn, and she loved to read. She was passionate about the English language.’’

Mrs. Howe’s brother, John Senders of Toronto, described his older sister, the third of five children, as “the major force in my life.’’

“She took me on after her younger sister gave up on me,’’ he said. “She offered me protection and taught me how to speak so it would identify me as coming from within a mile of Harvard Square. Rosella had nothing but scorn for people who murdered the English language.

“I remember with considerable amusement the letters she wrote when she took a job in the complaint department at Macy’s in New York City during the Depression answering irate letters. Hers were so engaging, at least two recipients asked to meet her and made proposals of marriage.’’

“Everything Rosella did,’’ he said, “was marked by elegance, even her tennis playing. She attempted unsuccessfully to change my point of view of the game. Instead of aiming to demolish my opponent, she tried to teach me to play gracefully, even if it lost a point. She wanted me to hit with elan and smoothness.’’

Mrs. Howe played tennis into her 80s.

“She was a great bridge player,’’ Senders said, “and when I was 5, Rosella taught me how to play bridge with our sisters. She just said ‘Bid!’ She had a beautiful voice and taught me to appreciate classical music.’’

She was also a scholar of Lewis Carroll, and traveled to meetings of the society in his name.

“Mother loved his word-play,’’ said her son, Edward H. of Jamaica Plain.

Rosella Senders Howe was born in Exeter, N.H., where her parents settled to farm. When they expanded the family, her sister, Virginia Browne of Wayland said, they moved to Cambridge for its schools.

After graduating from Cambridge Latin School, she enrolled at Radcliffe College but left after two years to help her family during the Great Depression. She decided on New York City, where she got the job at Macy’s and studied dance in Greenwich Village and toured with Charles Weidman, a pioneer in modern dance.

“Mother gave that up after a tour stop in Providence when she found herself sharing a dressing room with a circus elephant, though not at the same time,’’ said her daughter, Rosemary Howe Camozzi of Florence, Ore.

Prior to World War II, Mrs. Howe was working in Boston for the American Red Cross when she met Hartley Howe, a journalist and son of Louis McHenry Howe, political adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Howes married in 1941 and moved to Washington, D.C., where Mrs. Howe worked for the Office of Indian Affairs and wrote speeches and news releases for Sidney Hillman of the War Production Board. She and Eleanor Roosevelt remained friends over the years.

After the Howes moved to Queens, N.Y., Mrs. Howe taught English as a second language at Queens College. She learned to speak Japanese because of her students and used it for her visits to newfound friends in Japan.

“Mother was a lifelong learner,’’ Camozzi said. “I can remember as a child falling asleep to the clacking sound of my dad and mom at their typewriter.’’

The Howes moved from Cambridge permanently to their summer home in Westport in the 1980s. Mr. Howe died in 1996.

Mrs. Howe’s longevity seemed both hereditary and self-promoted. “Rosella took care of herself,’’ Edwards said. “She did not eat fat or use sugar and walked a lot. Even in her 90s, she did her leg exercises.’’

In failing health the last five years, Mrs. Howe still dressed “very sharply in wool skirts and tweeds,’’ Camozzi said. “Pants were anathema to her.’’

In earlier years, Mrs. Howe could be adventurous, her son said, driving 1,000 miles from Wisconsin to Apalachicola, Fla., just for oysters.

In addition to her son Edward, her daughter Rosemary, her sister Virginia, and her brother John, Mrs. Howe leaves two other sons, David S. of New York City and Henry S. of Gallup, N.M.; another sister, Henrietta Jacobsen of Austin, Texas; twelve grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow at Westport Friends Meeting.