Legislator faded away, died alone

He was a 32-year-old freshman legislator, impeccably dressed in a pinstripe suit, crisp button-down shirt, and bow tie, when he strode through the halls of the State House almost 40 years ago.

Representative Richard W. Daly, a Wellesley Republican, was a staunch fiscal conservative who wanted to deny welfare benefits to immigrants and reduce the number of seats in the House of Representatives. He decried lowering the State House flag to half-staff in 1970 after the deaths of four Kent State University students.

Those who knew Daly then have been remembering that part of his life as they prepare to bury a man who apparently left no money for his own funeral and had no known relatives to claim his body. They are also struggling to understand what he became after losing his last political race in 1992: a virtual recluse living in a $130-a-week rooming house in Jamaica Plain.

Daly, 71, who never married and had no children, was found by his landlord next to his bed around Memorial Day, the victim of cardiac arrest. He had been dead about a week.

Daly had not seen the men who served with him in the Legislature for more than 15 years. But since they learned of his death, those Republican and Democratic politicians have responded in ways reminiscent of war buddies coming together to bury a fellow soldier or police honoring another officer.

They have been calling each other to find out the date of the memorial service and what they can contribute to his funeral costs.

John Kelleher, a Democrat who left the House in 1977 and is now a Boston detective, identified Daly at the morgue. His body was released to Royall Switzler, a Wellesley Republican who was elected to Daly's seat in 1972, when Daly left the Legislature to make an unsuccessful run for Congress.

Daly "was sort of part of a club, and we've tried to rattle the club members," said Gil Cox, a Republican who represented Needham and Wellesley in the House with Daly. "He should have a decent burial."

Daly graduated from Wellesley High School and attended Harvard University for two years before dropping out in 1960. He joined the US Air Force, was honorably discharged, and became a reporter at the Boston Herald Traveler, where he became the State House bureau chief.

In 1968, he was elected to the House, where legislators were terrified of him at first, said William H. Ryan, 68, then a Republican representative from Haverhill.

" 'Watch out for him, he's a newspaper reporter,' " Ryan recalled hearing. " 'He's going to tip off the newspaper on who knows what.' He turned out to be the opposite. He was someone you could say anything to."

Ryan and Daly became close friends, dining at the Harvard Club and frequenting pubs before heading back to the State House for late-night budget sessions.

"He was a good party guy," he said. "He drank nothing but the best. I can't remember what he drank, but there was a lot of it, and it was the best."

Daly was not afraid to challenge the speaker of the House, was eloquent, and never had a hair out of place, Ryan recalled.

"He looked like he could be in Parliament," he said. "He reminded me of Winston Churchill."

After his failed bid for Congress, Daly moved to Melrose and made another bid for Congress, waging an unsuccessful campaign against Democrat Edward J. Markey.

In 1986, Daly sought to regain his seat as Wellesley representative but lost. In 1992, he tried again, but lost the Republican nomination to Peter E. Madden.

"To use his own words, it was his last hurrah," said Richard MacIntosh, a pharmacist who served with Daly on the Wellesley Library Board of Trustees.

He sold his parents' Colonial house on Avon Road and moved to the rooming house on Green Street.

MacIntosh said he never asked Daly why he chose to live so humbly.

Perhaps after losing so many races, Daly decided to fade away, Ryan said. "It's a shame he didn't really have a chance to really blossom. Maybe he would have been in the US Congress."

But MacIntosh said Daly wanted to live a simpler life. He traded his suits for chinos and open-necked shirts and spent his last years voraciously reading history books and science-fiction, watching Harvard hockey and football games on television, and occasionally going to Doyle's, a local pub, for a beer.

"Dick led a rather reclusive life and he chose that," MacIntosh said.

His friends plan to have his body cremated and his ashes buried with his parents in Woodlawn Cemetery in Wellesley.

MacIntosh said he would like to see a simple ceremony, officiated by a representative from Harvard or the State House.

"It's gratifying to see people come forward, speak very well of him and his integrity," he said. "I've never experienced people willing to go so far to help a friend at this stage of their lives."

Maria Cramer can reached at mcramer@globe.com.