| Graduation Year | Class of 1944 |
| Date of Passing | Apr 21, 2014 |
| About | Birth: Jul. 12, 1926 Rushville Rush County Indiana, USA Death: Apr. 21, 2014 Saratoga Santa Clara County California, USA San Jose's first female mayor, Janet Gray Hayes, has died at 87 SAN JOSE -- Janet Gray Hayes, who became San Jose's first female mayor 40 years ago and sparked a late-20th-century women's movement in elective politics, died Monday about 4:30 p.m. at the Saratoga Retirement Community where she had been living, her daughter, Megan Hayes, said. She was 87. Hayes came to San Jose with her husband, Kenneth, a physician, when he took a job at Agnews State Hospital in 1956. The couple met six years earlier as students at the University of Chicago. She was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Indiana University, he a medical student from UC Berkeley. She earned a master's degree in social work and supported his medical studies after they married in 1950. Her small-town Indiana childhood taught the former Janet Gray Frazee about tough fights. Her father suffered from multiple sclerosis for years before dying of the disease. Her grandmother suffered severe burns that slowly and painfully killed her. "If you think that's bad," she once said, "you should hear about my mother's life. It reads like a Charles Dickens novel." In the 1970s, Hayes' mother, Lucile, and her stepfather, George Hosmer, surprised a burglar at their Indianapolis home who shot and killed Lucile Hosmer. Survived by: Three daughters, Lindy Hayes of San Jose, Katherine Rodriguez of Truckee, Megan Hayes of Laramie, Wyo.; son, John of Arlington, Mass.; seven grandchildren. Believed buried at Los Gatos Memorial Park, San Jose, Santa Clara County, California, USA beside Kenneth. Read more about her incredible political life at: http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_25610127/san-joses-first-female-mayor-janet-gray-hayes |
