When Sheila T. Russell was elected mayor last week, she knew she was off to a late start.

"I've been gypped--no, shorted--two months of my term," she says.

But in 1956, Russell had an early start, this one of another kind.

When she married Leonard J. Russell at age 20 she unknowingly took the first step toward the mayor's office.

"I came from a very non-political family myself," she says. "My husband got me into politics. Now I'm a junkie."

A lifelong resident of Cambridge, Russell had attended St. John's Parochial School in North Cambridge.

While married to Leonard Russell, Russell worked in the family trucking business.

"I did bookkeeping," she says. "I was home with five children. I never drove any trucks."

When Leonard Russell campaigned for City Council in 1967, it marked the beginning of Russell's indoctrination into the world of Cambridge politics.

Russell is not related to the three Cambridge Russells who served as mayor during the first half of this century.

While campaigning, however, Leonard Russell would occasionally claim to be a cousin of the popular Russell, Sheila Russell says.

Leonard Russell lost his 1967 campaign, as well as the two which followed. But in 1973 he was finally elected to the City Council.

Leonard Russell was elected mayor in 1984, and served until his death in June of 1985.

Sheila for City Council

Sheila Russell says she was surprised when some of Leonard Russell's supporters suggested she should run.