On the strength of family, community

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, was interviewed Tuesday by the Globe's David Dahl and New England Cable News's Jim Braude as part of a series of conversations with candidates for the corner office. The interviews are focusing on the candidates' personal backgrounds, as part of extensive coverage of their records and plans for the state. Future interviews with the candidates will focus on the issues. Here is an edited transcript:

Q. Could you take us back to your early days, growing up in Springfield? You've been talking a little more recently about what was a pretty tough childhood.

A. It all started in Springfield. That's where my parents, who are immigrants from Ireland, settled. My father was a city worker and my mother was a maid, and that's where I grew up. And it was a great place to grow up. Great schools, great neighborhood. There was tragedy in my family's life. Two of my brothers had been killed in horrific accidents by the time I was 14 and then my father died [when I was] 16. But I lived in a community where people took care of each other, and people stepped into my life, gave me encouragement, believed in me, encouraged me to go to college. And so a lot of good things came out of some bad things.

Q. You were 14 years old. One brother was killed on a bicycle right before you were born, another one was killed when you were 14. He was age 26. What was that like in the Reilly household?

A. I was very fortunate because I had a strong mother. I mean, she was about 5 feet, but she was tough as nails. And she refused to quit, and she realized that she had to hold us together, because it's a tough thing. My brother was killed. We shared a bedroom together. I go to school and he goes to work, and the next time I see him, it's at the funeral home. So it's a tough thing for a kid. But it's a tough thing for the whole family, and she was the glue and the strength, and we're not going to quit. We've got to press on. And she held us together. If she didn't hold up, none of us would have, and there were two of us at home at that point, my younger sister. And God bless her for her strength and her toughness. That's where I get it from.

Q. Back in Springfield, your best friend as a young kid is your best friend 50 years later, Wayne Budd. We know him as former US attorney, [a] big guy in the business community. Irish kid, black kid, 50 years ago in a city. Pretty rare. What was that like?

A. When you're kids, color doesn't mean anything. And we just became friends, and we both had moved out to a different neighborhood and we had gone to junior high school together, so we saw each other. . . . He was the one I knew, and he knew me. And his father played a big part in my life. His father was Joe Budd, a Springfield police officer, who was a tough man, but a good man. He was an ex-Marine. . . . And he stepped into my life after my father died. He had no responsibility, but he was not going to let me slip through the cracks. And he kept on telling me, 'Hang in there. You are going to go to college,' when my high school really had me tracked for trade school, and he wasn't buying any of that. He said, 'You're going to college.' And my mother kept on telling me, 'Hey, listen to Mr. Budd, listen to Mr. Budd.' And he kept on telling me, 'You're going to get your chance now. You get it together here, and you've got to find your potential. You'll get your chance.' And Wayne and I laugh about it now. He said, 'My father said you'll get your chance. He didn't mean governor. He didn't mean governor!' (laughter).'

Q. What about going into college, American International College? Tell us a little bit about what made you choose that school.

A. I was working on construction, and one day I realized that all my friends are going to college; I'm not. And my grades were -- I had pretty much lost interest in school. I didn't see the benefit of it, didn't apply myself, and didn't reach my potential. So I was on construction one day, and I said, 'Wait a minute.' It was a couple weeks before school started, and I was 17 years old.

Q. You were a senior at this point?

A. No, I had just graduated, but I wasn't going to college. I wasn't aimed in that direction, and went home that day and I said, 'Ma, I want to go to college.' We didn't know how to do it. She went to the parish priest. The next thing I knew, I end up in Nova Scotia, and at St. Francis Xavier University, and I spent a year there. . . . But then I kind of realized what that was all about, because it's a wish of a family I guess, to have a son be a priest. And after a year of that, I realized that's not for me. Good thing, but it wasn't for me.

Q. Your friend, Wayne Budd, calls you a rebel. And from what I read, you didn't have the grades to get into American International College. You had essentially an angel, did you not?

A. Yeah, I did. Esther Hanson, God bless her. . . . She was the register of students. . . . She called me Thomas. 'Thomas,' she said, 'we have a problem here.' And she showed me my transcript and, [said] 'These grades are terrible.' And she showed me a letter of non-recommendation from my high school principal, basically saying he doesn't want to go to college. And then she said, 'You haven't taken the SATs.' But she was a great lady. She saw the potential in me, as other people saw, and she said, 'Let me give you your chance, so, you're going to get your chance.' I was 18 years old, and I knew this was it for me. I wasn't going to get any more chances because . . . I dug myself a hole, there's no question about it. But I had to start living up to my potential, and I did. I walked out of that office knowing, hey, I've got to get going, and I thought I had done better the year before, but they were all religion classes, which didn't matter there. And I hadn't taken the SATs. I didn't know what the SATs were at that point. No one in my family had gone to college. . . . There's an awful lot of people along the way that saw something in me, gave me a chance. Never give up on a kid. And that's why, today, I see kids that struggle and I know they're having a hard time, and I know that they deserve the same chance that I had.

Q. Now, what did you decide to major in at AIC, once you decided to go there?

A. I majored in economics, and I was very good at it. I had a fellowship after to teach economics at the University of Connecticut. But it had reached a point, really, in the higher levels of economics, it's math, and I wanted to be a lawyer at that point. And I decided to go to law school. But before that, I worked for the CIA, right out of AIC.

Q. How did you make that career choice?

A. I was recruited. I was an intelligence analyst, but it was good experience, and I wanted to appreciate the value of information, good data, accurate data. . . . It was during the Cold War, and there was an awful lot going on. So, it was an exciting time to all of a sudden be in Washington, D.C. But then I decided I was going to law school.

Q. You've been married, what, 40 years, is that right?

A. We've been married 40 years. . . . We met at a department store. I was a stock boy. I had a lot of different jobs, just to get through school. . . . But we met, and the first day -- I knew that date I was going to marry her, and she's done a good job with me. (laughter)

Q. Three kids, yes?

A. We have three beautiful daughters, wonderful daughters. Leslie, Meghan, and Kyle. We have six grandchildren, five granddaughters and a little grandson, Tommy. [My wife is] a teacher, and you live all these years and you see how hard teachers work. And she's a great teacher. This Sunday, I was over in Watertown, just out for a walk, and a woman ran by me and came back and said, 'You're Mr. Reilly. You're Ruth's husband.' That's what they say. And, 'Your wife was my daughter's fourth-grade teacher, and I wish every one of my children had her for a teacher.'

Q. Why did you choose public service as opposed to a business or a law career?

A. After law school, I worked in the AG's office for a little bit, and pretty much started at the bottom there. . . . I started as a legal assistant, and then three years as a prosecutor in Suffolk County. And then Wayne and I, Wayne Budd, it was Budd & Reilly, and then we made a little money and we hired a young lawyer out of Northeastern, Ralph Martin. . . . It was a good-sized law firm, and I was there for eight years. . . . The job I really wanted . . . at that point, was district attorney of, I thought, maybe Suffolk County, but it turned out to be Middlesex County. I became first assistant, and I loved it.

Q. You've been, what, three decades plus in Watertown, renting an apartment?

A. First of all, we love Watertown. We settled there after I graduated from law school. . . . Same neighborhood for, what, 36 years now. And the schools are 100 yards from our home, elementary school. My wife worked in Belmont. You grow into a neighborhood, and it's our home. It's where we brought up our children. We're happy there. I don't need much, and my wife fortunately doesn't need much either. We need each other, and our family, and a neighborhood that -- it's a community of people that we've known for a long time. We take care of each other.

Q. We had to collect some family photos for this spot, and your staff reminded us that you had had a fire at this place.

A. It was frightening. It wasn't so much me. I was at work. It was 12 noon. My wife was at home, and thank God for smoke detectors, because the fire started on the back porch and it was just a wall of fire that came through the house. She barely got out of it. We lost everything except for the photographs -- they were in bureaus, drawers -- which was pretty much the story of our life. And I went in there two days afterwards and it's all boarded up . . . and we went through there, just scrummaging through there, and we found the photos. About 80 percent of them -- anything out was gone -- and it's the story of your life and it was important. And when you look back, we lost everything, but we didn't lose anything really, because we had each other and that's all that's important. A couch is a couch, a suit is a suit -- I got some new suits.

Q. Most people only know you as attorney general, as Middlesex prosecutor. What do you do in your down time to relax, to calm down, to have fun?

A. I love to cook. . . . I do all the cooking. Sunday, they all come over and they all make their orders.

Q. Not Irish food, I hope.

A. No. (laughter). . . . I hate it. No, I love Italian food. I mostly cook Italian. But Sunday, it was steak and chicken, and I did swordfish on the grill, and I did scrod and baked sole and a pasta dish.

Q. Do you read the stories about you? Do you read the columns in the newspapers?

A.I read all of it. I don't always like it, on the other end of it. But I read it, and sometimes you pick up things, and you take the criticism. Sometimes you learn from it, sometimes it's not relevant. But . . . once I get home, I can shut it off. And then I relax, and I've always been able to do that. Otherwise you get consumed by it. I think it's important to have a real life that involves your family and your friends, and things that you like to do. Politics does not consume me. It never has.

Q. (Recalling Reilly's statement in early February that ''politics are not my strong suit), would you take that back if you could?

A. What I meant to say is, it's a means to an end for me. Politics doesn't come first, and it's not about being a partisan and putting politics first. I really try to put people first. . . . Your whole life kind of shapes you, and the experiences, and I always try to [ask] . . . what's the impact of what I'm doing on you, to get it down to real people, and how can you make people's lives better, the way people made my life better?

Q.Do you miss at all the nitty gritty of being in a courtroom?

A. I miss the courtroom. I love the courtroom. This race is almost like a trial for me, in the sense that on Nov. 7, that jury's coming back. Except there's no appeal this time. . . . I love the courtroom, I love the sense that there's a decision. It doesn't go on forever. I miss that, I must say.

Q. Who's your political role model?

A. I look at the ability of both [former governors] Michael Dukakis and Bill Weld to attract good people, and I've always modeled that myself in terms of district attorney, attorney general . . . [former governor] Paul Cellucci, who stuck by his guns on education reform. . . . I pick up some things and I admire those things about people, but I'm pretty much my own person.