San Jose's first female mayor, Janet Gray Hayes, has died at 87
Source: San Jose Mercury News
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.
The former mayor was recovering from pneumonia and a fall, was hospitalized, then had a stroke Sunday morning. She died with her four children at her bedside.
"Janet was a great woman and a great mentor for me," said Susan Hammer, the second woman mayor of San Jose who took much inspiration from Hayes' historical place in local, state and national politics. "But more than that, she was a dear friend."
...
No woman had been elected to lead a U.S. city of more than 500,000 people when Hayes won a runoff victory in November 1974. Hayes at the time proclaimed San Jose the "feminist capital of the world."
Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_25610127/san-joses-first-female-mayor
= new reply since forum marked as read
R.I.P. Janet Hayes. 
