CONCORD, N.H. -- After twice failing to win the Democratic nomination for governor of New Hampshire, Hugh J. Gallen was almost ready to retire. But he decided to give it one more try.
When he died Wednesday at the age of 58, he was serving out the last days of his second term as governor. Gallen died in a Boston hospital of liver and kidney failure.
The former state Democratic chairman and state legislator had failed to win his party's gubernatorial nomination in 1974 and 1976. He was thinking of retirement but decided to take one more shot at the governorship in 1978.
On his third try, he won the party's 1978 nomination. He went on to upset three-term Republican Gov. Meldrim Thomson by a narrow margin in the general election.
He lured voters away from the popular Thomson, a fiscal conservative, by pledging to outlaw controversial Construction Work In Progress electric rates, which allowed the Public Service Co. of New Hampshire to charge customers in advance for construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. He signed a bill outlawing the charges in May 1979.
Gallen easily defeated Thomson again in 1980, but lost a bid for a third term to Republican Gov.-elect John Sununu in the Nov. 2 election, largely because of a burgeoning state deficit which Sununu blamed on mismanagment of the state's finances.
He was first hospitalized for dehydration Nov. 19 in the the Virgin Islands, where he had gone on for a post-election vacation. He was flown to Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital the following day and doctors there said he was suffering from a blood infection that impaired liver and kidney functions.
He left the hospital for two-hour Christmas visit with his family at his Littleton home. When he returned, doctors found he was suffering from internal bleeding and he was moved to the hospital's intensive care unit in critical condition.
Gallen was born July 30, 1924, in Portland, Ore. In 1930, the family moved to Medford, Mass. After graduation from Medford High School, he studied diesel engine repair under the federally sponsored National Youth Administration.
But jobs were scarce in those years and Gallen entered the Civilian Conservation Corps, building roads and campsites on Mount Kearsarge in Warner, N.H.
He also worked in the Littleton area as a truck driver, paper mill laborer and carpenter.
A good athlete, Gallen at one point had a successful tryout with the Washington Senators and played a year in the minor leagues before his baseball career was cut short by arm trouble.
In 1948, he went to work for a Buick dealer in Littleton, an association which would last 10 years. Then he joined Northern Garage Inc. as a salesman. In 1960, Gallen purchased 25 percent ownership of the garage and assumed full control in 1964.
The business prospered, becoming one of the largest General Motors dealerships in northern New Hampshire.
Gallen began dabbling in politics in the late '60s, and served as Democratic State Chairman in 1971. He was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic convention. The next year, he was elected to the state House of Representatives, becoming the first Democrat to represent Littleton since 1932.
In 1948, Gallen married Irene Carbonneau of Littleton.
He is survived by his wife, a son, Michael, two daughters, Kathleen Rossand Sheila Derosiers, and a 6-year-old granddaughter, Stephanie Ross, described by family members as a great favorite of the governor.
