MOUNT DESERT, Maine — A Milford native who ended up traveling the world and mixing with the nation’s political elite as the wife of former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger has died.
Rebecca Jane Dalton Weinberger died Sunday at the age of 91. She was predeceased by her husband, who died in 2006 at the age of 88.
Her son, Caspar Weinberger Jr., says she suffered a stroke a week ago and died late Sunday at a nursing care center in Bar Harbor.
Aside from her famous husband, Jane Weinberger was known locally as an author and for owning and running Windswept House Publishers out of her home, which overlooks Somes Sound. Weinberger mostly published children’s books and books of her own writing, including a collection of letters she wrote during the 1970s and 1980s, when her husband served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.
Jane Weinberger met her husband during World War II when they both were on a troop ship carrying soldiers to Australia. She was an Army nurse, having graduated from college in Boston and then, at the start of the war, joining the military. The future secretary of defense was then an Army officer. They married in 1942 in Sydney, Australia, according to a 1974 story in the Bangor Daily News.
Before serving as secretary of defense under President Reagan, Caspar Weinberger served as director of the federal Office of Management and Budget and as secretary of health, education and welfare.
Jane Weinberger, besides founding and running Windswept House Publishers, was former chairwoman of Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington and served on the boards of Amherst College in Massachusetts and of The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. With her husband, Weinberger also established a scholarship at Mount Desert Island High School for students headed into vocational programs.
In a joint statement, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and former Maine Gov. John McKernan praised Weinberger for her generosity and friendship.
“Jane was an undeniable pillar of strength and inspiration to so many in Maine and exemplified the can-do spirit and work ethic that have long been hallmarks of our great state,” they said Monday.
Caspar Weinberger Jr. said his mother’s ashes would be spread over the gardens she tended at their home in Somesville.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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