"We were sitting around the day of the funeral and talking. I thought they were kidding when they said, 'why don't you run.'"

Russell has served six terms since winning the 1985 election.

When the Alliance for Change was founded in 1993, it endorsed Russell, then a four-term independent. Russell is still endorsed by the Alliance

She now resides at Hawthorne Park. Four of her children have married and left Cambridge. Her youngest daughter, Mary Kate, still lives in the city and works for State Representative Eric T. Turkington.

Russell opposed rent control, the most controversial issue taken up by the community during her tenure.

Russell says she was forced to support Question Nine, which ended rent control in 1994, by the inflexibility of tenant organizations.

"They wouldn't even agree to changing a comma" of the rent control code, she says. "If only they had done that, we would never have had Question Nine."

"I felt badly that [property owners] were driven to Question Nine," she says.

Colleagues praise Russell's ability and her straightforward approach.

"She takes her City Council responsibilities very seriously," says City Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55. "She doesn't spend a lot of time on rhetoric and oratory. She comes to the bottom time very quickly."

'Flew to the Moon'

Duehay also praises Russell's sense of humor.

Russell tells of how seven-year-old Molly Struzziery, one of Russell's nine grandchildren, proudly informed a classmate last week that her grandmother was the mayor.

"Yeah," replied the incredulous first-grader. "And my grandmother flew to the moon."