A voter's determination is rewarded

Stacy Amaral was baking Mexican wedding cookies in her Worcester kitchen and listening to the inauguration on the radio when suddenly the new governor was telling her mother's story.

At the crescendo of his inaugural speech, Governor Deval Patrick recounted a congratulatory letter from Amaral detailing how determined she and her mother had been to get to the polls to vote for him . Though the elevator in her building was broken, Amaral's 82-year-old mother -- who uses a walker after recovering from cancer and a broken femur -- took the stairs.

"That frail 82-year-old did not walk down six flights of stairs for us to conduct the business of government the same old way," Patrick said in his address. "It is time for a change."

Amaral's mother, Leatrice Dratfield of Worcester, was a singer and actress in New York for years and moved to Massachusetts about three years ago. She was always committed to elections, she said last night, and she was impressed with Patrick.

"His presentation was just really appealing to me," Dratfield said. "He seems like a really straight-out guy."

Amaral often sends personal notes to novelists and others whose work she admires -- and usually receives responses. In years past, she has corresponded with Benjamin LaGuer, whose eloquent assertions that he was wrongfully convicted of rape gripped Amaral, as they once did Patrick. (Patrick's Republican opponent, Kerry Healey, pilloried him during the campaign for his advocacy of LaGuer -- a campaign theme that Amaral yesterday called dirty.)

Amaral, 60, was stunned her letter had inspired a man who had so inspired her. "I see him as a populist," she said. "I've lived in the same inner-city neighborhood for 30 years and I really feel connected to my neighborhood . . . I think there was something about him that I recognized. He was talking about connection."