Eleanor McGovern, 85; wife of 1972 presidential hopeful broke ground with solo campaigning

At a time in U.S. history when the wives of presidential candidates usually campaigned with their men, Eleanor McGovern stumped for her husband alone.

It was 1972, and then-Sen. George McGovern was the Democratic nominee for president. His wife, the second daughter of a politically active family in South Dakota, had no plans to be an "innocuous" first lady. She proved it on the campaign trail, speaking out on such issues as abortion and the Vietnam War.

By the time the campaigning was over and the vote was in, she had broken new ground and redefined the role of a candidate's wife, though her husband lost to President Nixon by a landslide.

Eleanor McGovern died of heart failure Thursday at her home in Mitchell, S.D. She was 85.

"When we look back on this, it doesn't, in retrospect, seem very much, but Eleanor was the first spouse to campaign for her husband alone," said Robert G. Duffett, president of Dakota Wesleyan University, the McGoverns' alma mater. "They had such confidence in her ability to articulate an issue they just sent her out campaigning. That was huge in '72. It was unprecedented."

The character and courage that defined McGovern's adult life began in a childhood marked by loss and poverty. She was born Eleanor Stegeberg on Nov. 25, 1921, and grew up on a farm outside Woonsocket, S.D., during the Dust Bowl years. When she was 11, her mother passed away, "a victim of the Depression because she had to work so hard," McGovern wrote in her 1974 memoir, "Uphill: A Personal Story."

The death of her mother left Eleanor and her twin sister Ila to take care of housekeeping and help raise their younger sister. Their grief-stricken father struggled to make a living; the scars remained with Eleanor.

"I still carry a trace of bitterness about poverty," she wrote in "Uphill." "It was not ennobling for my father and grandfather to scratch out a living on land rendered barren. The poor have few choices in life. About all they can do is persevere."

In high school, the twins excelled academically and made a name for themselves on the debate team. Eleanor first met her future husband after her debate team beat his. Later the two met again on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan. A lack of funds forced her to leave after one year and take a job as a legal secretary.