[3] Although she excelled at Chaffee and was named most likely to become mayor in the school year book, Tambussi claimed she often felt out of place as someone from a poor mill town.
[3] She went on to study sociology and economics at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts,[4] where she earned her B.A.
[6] In the summers, the couple would operate the theater, with Ella Grasso selling tickets at the box office.
[5] After graduating from Mount Holyoke College she joined the Republicans until she switched in 1951 to the Democratic Party to support incumbent Governor Chester Bowles.
[18] Grasso faced Republican Richard Kilborn in the general election and narrowly defeated him by 4,063 votes.
Grasso participated in a difficult primary against Attorney General Robert Killian, who received the support of multiple party leaders, but after narrowly winning the seventy delegates of Hartford by two thousand votes, she effectively secured the nomination with her pledged delegates.
[25][26] Democratic Party leader John Moran Bailey preferred Killian as the party nominee, and hoping to avoid a primary that would negatively affect the Democratic nominee's chance in the general election, Bailey convinced Killian to drop out in exchange for the lieutenant gubernatorial nomination.
By the time of the gubernatorial nomination balloting, all of her opponents had dropped out except for Norwalk Mayor Frank Zullo, who dropped out during the convention, and as she was the only candidate to receive at least twenty percent of the delegate votes appearing on the primary ballot, no primary was held.
[6] Upon taking office, Connecticut had an $80 million budget deficit, so Grasso promised fiscal responsibility.
[29][5][6][3][30] During the 1976 presidential election, Grasso supported Senator Henry M. Jackson in the primaries and was presented as a possible vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, with the Young Democrats of Connecticut attempting to convince her to present herself as a candidate, although municipal leaders angry over the decreased federal revenue sharing funds promised to prevent her nomination, and she stated that she was not interested.
[33] Following John Moran Bailey's death, there was no longer someone strong enough to forestall a primary challenge between Grasso and Lieutenant Governor Robert K.
[34] In December 1978, Killian announced his gubernatorial campaign, but after defeating her primary challenge, Grasso was re-elected in 1978 with little difficulty against Representative Ronald A.
This relieved the rescue and cleanup authorities from the need to help the mounting number of stuck cars and instead allowed clean-up and emergency services for shut-ins to proceed.
Shortly before her resignation, the mayor and city council of Torrington, Connecticut, signed a proclamation thanking her for her service as governor, secretary of state, and representative.
[38] On February 5, 1981, less than a year after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and less than six weeks after leaving office, Grasso died at Hartford Hospital after suffering a heart attack and organ failure after falling into a coma earlier in the day.
[40] In 1981, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Grasso the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Women's Hall of Fame inducted her in 1993.