Ella Grasso

Ella Tambussi Grasso (May 10, 1919 – February 5, 1981) was a Democratic Party American politician. She was the first female governor of the state of Connecticut. Grasso was in office from 1975 to 1980. She was elected governor in November 1974. She was the first female governor elected in her own right. From 1971 to 1975, she was a member of the United States House of Representatives. Grasso was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
Grasso died on February 5, 1981 in Hartford, Connecticut of a heart attack and multiple organ failure caused by ovarian cancer, aged 61.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.