Muriel Humphrey Brown, senator, wife of HHH, dead at 86

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- MurielHumphrey Brown, widow of late Vice President Hubert Humphrey, whom she briefly succeeded in the U.S. Senate, has died. She was 86. 

Mrs. Brown died of natural causes Sunday at Abbott Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis at 2 p.m., surrounded by her children and her husband. She was admitted to the hospital in the morning and was alert until the end, talking about the Minnesota Vikings game and her son' s gubernatorial bid. 

Mrs. Brown rarely appeared in public in recent years but was by the side of her son, Hubert Humphrey III, last week when he won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor gubernatorial primary. Humphrey, the state attorney general, won a five-way contest to advance to November' s election. 

" Wouldn' t Hubert have been proud, " Mrs. Brown said from her wheelchair to a cheering crowd. 

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, who was her late husband' s protege and knew her for 50 years, said she and Humphrey were a fantastic public and private team. 

" Together they helped change this country to a better, fairer, more decent society, " Mondale said. " Half of what we credit Hubert for we should credit Muriel because they were a team from beginning to end." 

As widow of the state' s most popular politician, she became the state' s only female U.S. senator when then-Gov. Rudy Perpich appointed her to the seat vacated by Humphrey' s death from cancer in January 1978. 

She did not seek election that fall, leaving the Senate after nine months. Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger succeeded her. 

She was the 12th woman to serve in the Senate and the fifth to take a seat vacated by her husband. She was the only woman in the Senate at the time. 

" It' s the most challenging thing I' ve ever done in my whole life, " she said. 

Like her husband, she championed social programs and labor issues. She pushed harder for abortion rights, saying that the federal government ought to pay for abortions for poor women. She called it an equal rights issue. Humphrey had voted against Medicaid funding of abortions. 

She said abortion is " a very touchy personal decision that should be made between the family and the counselors of the family -- both religious and social." 

Mrs. Brown was born Muriel Fay Buck on Feb. 20, 1912, in Huron, S.D. She attended public schools and later Huron College. She met Humphrey in 1934 when he was working at his father' s drugstore and she was a bookkeeper for a utility; they were married two years later and moved to Minneapolis. 

Mrs. Brown, who once said she was afraid to address her own women' s club, became a relaxed speaker with a resonant, calming voice. She campaigned seven days a week for her husband when he ran for president in 1972, making her one of the first political wives to campaign alone extensively. 

She spoke at neighborhood gatherings of women and copies of her beef soup recipe were usually on hand. 

Her choice of words reflected her level of involvement in her husband' s campaigns. 

" Hubert and I started in politics in 1943, " she said. 

He first won public office as mayor of Minneapolis in 1945, was elected to the U.S. Senate three years later and was elected vice president as President Lyndon Johnson' s running mate in 1964. 

But his bid for the presidency fell short in the tumultuous year of 1968, when he lost to Richard Nixon. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1970. 

Mrs. Brown' s involvement in politics was evident when she described Humphrey' s decision to run again for Democratic nomination for president in 1972. 

" It was not an easy decision for us to run again, " she said back then. 

She said she made up her mind first and told him by telephone, " I want you to run." 

Even her personal hobbies adapted to campaign life. She was a seamstress, but switched to needlepoint because it traveled better. Her needlepoint won prizes at the Minnesota State Fair. 

In Minnesota, the Humphreys lived on a lake just outside Waverly, where he died at age 66 after a long battle with cancer. 

In 1979, she married Max Brown, a Nebraskan and lifelong Republican whom she met when the two were sixth-graders in Huron. 

The couple lived in Plymouth and Mrs. Brown enjoyed living out of the spotlight. 

" This is a whole new life for me, " she said in a 1986 interview with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. " I don' t live a life of politics any more. Max and I have so much fun. We have a wonderful companionship that Hubert and I didn' t have, couldn' t have. We were so busy and it was so official almost all the time." 

She had been ailing for the last couple years. One of her legs was partially amputated, although it wasn' t immediately explained why. Her family strongly guarded her privacy in her later years. 

In addition to her husband and son, Mrs. Brown is survived by a daughter, Nancy Solomonson, and two sons, Bob and Douglas Humphrey. 

Gov. Arne Carlson ordered all non-U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff through the burial. 

" MurielHumphrey Brown played a significant role in our state' s history and she was truly a Minnesota treasure, " Carlson said. 

A private burial and a public memorial service were tentatively scheduled for Thursday. Details were not immediately available.< 

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© Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.