In 1980, former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance was scheduled to give the keynote address at Harvard's Commencement. And Glenn S. Koocher '71, then a member of the Cambridge school committee, was struggling to find a friend a ticket for the ceremony.

Koocher finally found a ticket, but then he made the mistake of telling popular city councillor and titan of political patronage Walter J. Sullivan about his troubles.

"He scolded me," Koocher recalled recently, "and pulled out a pile of tickets and said "You go to the printer and he gives you all you want."

For 59 years, Walter Sullivan, who retired from the city council in 1994, and the rest of his family have been serving the people of Cambridge in ways both large and small.

In 1936, Michael Andrew Sullivan, also known as "Mickey the Dude," was elected to the city council. When he died in 1949, son Edward J. Sullivan, took over.

In 1960, Sullivan, by then city clerk, gave way on the city council to his brother Walter. And when Walter retired in 1994 after 34 years on the council and six as mayor, his son, Michael Anthony Sullivan, took a seat.

The Sullivans, in fact, are so prominent--and so well-loved--in Cambridge politics that in 1986 the chamber where the city council meets was renamed in their honor. Today, portraits of Mickey the Dude, Ed and Walter Sullivan hang above the rostrum in the Sullivan chamber.

"The Sullivans are the genuine article," says James J. Rafferty, a former school committee member who has worked on every Sullivan campaign since 1975. "They cared about people and still do, despite their achievements."

The Sullivans are a different kind of Massachusetts political family. There's no family money, no Hyannis estate, no hard drinkers, no Harvard degrees and no long, sordid history of scandal.

"They don't take a drink and they don't take another man's money," gushes Martin C. Foster, a Cambridge attorney and the former chair of the Cambridge Democratic party.

In some ways, the Sullivans have been the most honest of brokers. None of them has ever been accused of using public office for personal or financial gain.

"When people think of the Sulli- van family, they think of public service," says Joseph E. Connarton, who served the city in various positions, including as city clerk, from 1968-1992.

"They are in government solely to serve the people," Connarton says. "They give it 100 percent, even though it costs them personally and professionally."

In fact, Walter, perhaps the family's most eminent member, still shares a modest house on Putnam Street with two other families. His son, Michael, still lives at home. The house's not too far from where he, Ed and seven brothers and sisters grew up on Surrey St.

"Nobody will ever accuse a Sullivan of forgetting his roots, forgetting his constituents, or getting rich on politics," says Koocher, who served on the city's school committee from 1974-1986.

"No one can ever question their integrity," Connarton says.