Politics aside

One in a series of profiles on the spouses of Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates

When 250 people flocked to the Lenox Hotel for a fund-raiser last month, Hilary Gabrieli had the perfect opportunity to step up and tell the crowd why her husband, Christopher F. Gabrieli, should be elected governor. But she left the introductions to others.

``The reality is, she wasn't the kind of spouse that was going to stand up and say, `Gee, I really need to be a center of attention,' " recalled Democratic lawyer Cheryl Cronin , who cochaired the Women for Gabrieli event with Hilary Gabrieli.

Gabrieli has kept a lower public profile than any other spouse in the governor's race. She has appeared by her husband's side at only a handful of campaign events, instead deciding to maintain her focus on raising the couple's five children, ages 5 to 12. Her life revolves around their Louisburg Square mansion on Beacon Hill and their summer retreat in Beverly Farms.

``In a child's life, small things can mean the beginning and the end of the world," she explained in an interview at the office of her husband's nonprofit in Boston last week. `` Pretty much at every phase of my life, I'm passionate about what I choose to do. . . . Right now, my children are my number one priority."

A former tax lawyer, the Harvard-educated Hilary Gabrieli, 45 , is the daughter of Smoki Bacon , a renowned Boston socialite, and Edwin Conant Bacon , who died when she was 13. Privately, friends say, Gabrieli is genial and loyal, always the first to send food when someone is sick and known for sending hilarious e-mails to friends about her family's day-to-day adventures. Though the stature available to her through her husband's enormous wealth means she could easily have a high-profile spot on the social circuit, she is not interested.

``She's not a party girl," said her friend Beth Herbert , of Beacon Hill.

On the rare occasions she appears on the campaign trail -- for her husband's announcement, the state party convention, a handful of debates -- she wears pastel-colored suits, her ginger hair drawn back from her forehead with a matching headband. Extremely slight, she speaks with a lilting voice, enunciating every consonant, her diction laced with Back Bay formality.

She is fiercely protective of her privacy and that of her children, she explained in the interview this month in the 34th-floor office of her husband's nonprofit in downtown Boston. The conversation was strained; Christopher Gabrieli sat by her side throughout the interview, which she agreed to only reluctantly.

``It's not my top choice," she admitted with a nervous smile.

Advice she's given her husband on, say, the income tax rollback? ``Those are all privileged conversations."

What she reads of the campaign coverage? ``Enough," she said, adding after further prompting that she reads ``the things I think are relevant and important."

The Gabrielis' relationship seems to be equal parts adoration and admiration. In a May interview over lunch for a profile of her husband, she leaned in earnestly. ``As a voter," she said, ``he would be my fantasy." Her husband, in turn, raves that she has ``the strongest moral compass of anyone I know."

Though she grew up in a prominent Back Bay family, Gabrieli's parents were not as wealthy as they may have appeared. Her father, whose Brahmin father was chairman of the board of a publishing house, Allyn & Bacon , owned a small insurance agency. Her mother, Smoki Bacon , grew up in a poor Italian family in Brookline and became a fixture on the city's social scene, volunteering for dozens of charitable causes. But Edwin Conant Bacon wasn't a strong businessman, and his wife worked as a graphic artist so that Hilary and her older sister, Brooks, could attend the Winsor School, an exclusive private school for girls.

Hilary Gabrieli excelled at school, particularly in art (she still paints to relax) and in math. Her mother, a lifelong Democrat, took the girls marching against the Vietnam War and around the city with her in the Craftsmobile, a traveling arts program for children that she ran under the Kevin White administration.

``She thought it was terribly important," Gabrieli said. ``We were going to private school in the city, and she was worried we'd be too precious and not understand and know our city."

Tragedy struck one morning in the summer of 1974 . Her father, 44 , was found dead in his office. Though it was first labeled a suicide, the circumstances pointed to foul play. Days earlier, the beneficiary of his life insurance policies had been switched from his wife and children to his business partner, James F. Blaikie Jr. , without Smoki Bacon's knowledge. According to a later Globe report, a half-empty can of cyanide mysteriously turned up in an office drawer four days after the cause of death was determined to be cyanide poisoning.

Blaikie was later convicted of first-degree murder in an unrelated case and sentenced to life in prison. He was never charged in Bacon's case, but in 1987 , after a prolonged, highly public civil court battle between Smoki Bacon and her husband's life insurance company, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that there was ``sufficient evidence to warrant a finding that Blaikie murdered Bacon." Blaikie died in prison in 1992 .

Gabrieli declined to discuss her father's death. She and her husband vehemently objected to its mention in this story, saying they were not ready to discuss the details of it with their children.

``The one thing I'll say is I just adored him, and he was a total gentleman, and he treated every person whom he met with great kindness and great respect," she said.

Like her father, Gabrieli attended Harvard; she went on to law school at the University of Notre Dame . She worked as a corporate litigator for Hanify & King in Boston after graduation but soon realized she preferred tax law. She earned a master's degree in the subject at Boston University and then got a job at Deloitte & Touche .

After she married, Gabrieli's interest in policy led her to work as a lawyer for the House Committee on Taxation, where James T. Brett , who was then the chairman, said she played a pivotal role in several major pieces of tax reform legislation. She later moved to the Senate Committee on Taxation.

Gabrieli said she was drawn to tax law because ``it really gets to the basic values our society has." But when they first met, Christopher Gabrieli did not find it so alluring.

``He couldn't imagine a tax lawyer having any sense of humor at all," she said.

Though she was a year behind him at Harvard, they never crossed paths until 1991, when a mutual friend invited them both to a Christmas party in Brookline.

``I really liked him -- he thought I was pleasant enough," she said with a laugh. ``But we kept being thrown together, and I think he had a personal epiphany."

Within a few weeks, they were talking about children's names. Their courtship was short, and they were married a little more than a year after they met, at Church of the Advent on Beacon Hill . They honeymooned in the South Pacific.

She left her job with the Senate in 1998, the year her husband ran unsuccessfully for Congress. She said her husband protested at first, but she insisted -- the children, she believed, needed a full-time parent. Though she said it was clearly the right decision for her, it wasn't easy to leave the State House.

``I so miss working," she said. ``I really, really loved it."

Since then, her friends say, Gabrieli has devoted herself to her family with the intensity of a maestro. She has plenty of help; the family employs two nannies and occasionally hires other sitters to fill in when necessary. Neither she nor her husband cooks, so they rely on part-time kitchen help, and the rest is ``catch as catch can," she said. Their elder son will attend Roxbury Latin School in the fall, one daughter attends the Winsor School, and two go to Southfield School for girls in Brookline. Their youngest is 5.

Most days, she can be found in khakis and sneakers, shuttling her kids to math enrichment at the Russian School of Mathematics in Newton , to art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts , to sports games -- always in white cars (her auto dealer told her they are safest because they are most visible). She is an avid reader of books on child development.

Homework, and ethical behavior, are priorities for the children, and in a neighborhood where children's birthday parties can be lavish, she does not allow her children to have them, except with family members.

Marie Francis , a close friend, said that 90 percent of her conversations with Gabrieli are about their children or parenting.

``It all has to do with giving them the best childhood, the most nurturing, happiest childhood," she said. `` That's her philosophy right there: She's not going to miss a minute of it."