Ann B. Mathias, senator's wife, dies

Ann B. Mathias, the wife of the late U.S. Sen. Charles McC. Mathias (R-Md.), spoke poignantly about her struggle with dyslexia and became board chairman of the Lab School of Washington for learning-disabled children.

Ann Mathias, who lived in Chevy Chase, Md., died Feb. 19 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington of complications from pneumonia. She was 83.

Mathias spent much of her life close to power. Her father was Massachusetts governor in the late 1940s. Her husband, a liberal Republican, entered Maryland politics in the 1950s and then was in the U.S. House before serving in the Senate from 1969 to 1987. He died in 2010 after 51 years of marriage.

Mathias said she had a learning disability that caused her to struggle with reading, writing, memorization and public speaking. She told People magazine in 1983 she was an "academic disaster" as a student and memories of that were agonizing. The understanding of learning disabilities was all but nonexistent.

Studying poetry in eighth grade, "I would work all evening and go to sleep memorizing, only to wake up in the morning and not be able to recall one line," she told People. "None of the teachers believed me. I was accused again and again of not doing my homework. It was terribly painful."

One teacher was sympathetic and smoothed her entry to Vassar College, then an elite all-women's school, in Poughkeepsie. Her grades improved markedly under a college English teacher who took the time to coach her in new ways of memorizing material.

Over the years, she was an elementary school substitute teacher at private schools. In 1982, she became involved with the experimental Lab School, which sometimes used music and dance to help children express themselves in what would be a struggle in a traditional classroom.