Popular three-time former New Mexico first lady Alice King died Sunday night after suffering a stroke last week. She was 78.

"She was a wonderful mother and we got to share her with lots of other kids in New Mexico," said her son, Attorney General Gary King. "She cared about all the other kids in New Mexico. She spent most of her time and energy working to improve kids' lives in New Mexico."

King was married to former Gov. Bruce King who was with her at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque when she died. Sons Gary and Bill were also there.

King, a major supporter of the Carrie Tingley Children's Hospital, was also chairwoman of the New Mexico Children's Trust Fund. She is credited with creating the state's Children, Youth and Families Department.

"No one could have cared more for all New Mexico children and all of our citizens. We will all miss her dearly," Gary King said in a statement.

Funeral services are pending, but likely to be held in Moriarity.

Gov. Bill Richardson ordered flags lowered to half-staff in her honor, saying in a statement, "This is a sad day for all New Mexicans because we lost a true friend in Alice King."

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, also known for her work on children's issues, said she felt inspired by Alice King. "She paved the way for people like me to keep that focus on children, the importance paying attention to the needs of our children," Denish said. "She shined a light on the importance of helping the most vulnerable children. That's really what I remember about Alice. She took that on as her cause and her legacy, to make sure children who were abused and neglected got the care they deserved."

Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former Richardson Cabinet secretary, worked as Bruce King's director of the Agency on Aging. Her early 1990s interview for the job with Gov. King stands out less than her second interview — the one with Alice.

"He said, 'You be back here at 1:30 for your other interview," Grisham recalled Sunday night. "And I had the toughest, full-on interview I've ever had with Alice," she said.

The first lady demanded specifics of what Grisham would do if selected. "She said, 'Tell me how you are going to lift a family out of poverty or get care to the elderly,' " Grisham said. " 'And how are you going to do that in Raton?' She wanted concrete examples."

The interview was one of hundreds Alice likely gave over the years; the Kings were in office in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

King, whose 1948 Moriarty High School class had just 13 people, is probably one of the few New Mexicans to go straight from her farm to the governor's mansion.

In a recent interview with The New Mexican at the King Ranch near Stanley, she said the adjustment at first proved a little tough.

"At the time, I was a young farm girl that had not been off the farm, to tell the truth," she said. "And (I was) changing from living on a farm and rural life.

"New Mexico was very rural at the time; we had less than a million people. ... It was very wide open, a long ways in between every town, but there were lots of little towns," she said. "People did things as a community a lot more than they did now. They didn't get far out of the area where they lived."

"They" included Alice. And her arrival in Santa Fe from Stanley with Bruce raised more than a few eyebrows.

"Well, they just didn't understand ranch life, and they thought a rancher always had dirt on his boots and this sort of thing, and that was some of the things we'd hear people say, that we don't want someone carrying cow manure in on the rugs in the governor's residence and things. It was just a kind of an attitude that people felt like you just didn't know the city life, I guess. I'm not sure what they felt," she said. "But anyhow, they soon got over that. And we soon adjusted to learning how to live within a city and in close proximity to everybody, where out here if we get out and holler, no one hears you."

While Santa Fe started to feel less far away than it used to, some things wouldn't change. Alice, married in 1947, would always be the governor's partner, and they often campaigned by telling voters they were getting two Kings for the price of one.

And that seemed to be OK with most voters, who sent the pair back to Santa Fe an unprecedented three times, making them the governor and first lady who spent the most time in the governor's mansion.

"Bruce was very much a rancher — it's been his life on the ranch — and people were worried about that because they hadn't had a rancher as governor," she said. "But he was very outgoing, as you know, and people learned to like him, so he was selected."

To unwind during the job's more stressful times in the capital city, the family would head back to the ranch, Alice said. It was the place, after all, where they learned so much about how to govern.

"You also learn as a farmer, sometimes you have good years and sometimes you have bad years ... and government is the same way," she said. "You go through some really rough times sometimes, and then good times will come along if you just keep working and stay determined and stay focused on what your goal is."

The major change of scenery — from cooking for her husband and two sons to having catered dinners in Santa Fe — wasn't just happening to Alice. The role of women was rapidly evolving.

"A woman's place when he was first elected was to stay at the mansion and entertain, and that's really what people thought you ought to do," she said. "They wanted to go on tours of the mansion and see what the governor's house was like and what the public house was like, and we did a lot of that."

Sure, Alice did that. But she did so much more.

Soon, the farm girl was traveling around the state with Cabinet secretaries, working on social and health issues. She was in Mexico, visiting ranches of dignitaries.

By the Kings' third term in the 1990s, Alice had an office at the Capitol, the first First Lady's Office.

The work didn't pay. Not in dollars, anyway.

"I got paid for being rewarded for the programs by seeing how it helped people, seeing the opportunity you had to really help people," she said during the interview. "The opportunity was always there, you just had to take it."

Other types of opportunities arose, including ones few in the world would have: to befriend people whose last names included Carter and Clinton and Reagan and Mondale. A king of Spain, some English royalty.

"It's always a wonderful experience to get to meet those people and to see what their ideas are, things they do that can make things better and that you can work in your state, or you can improve on. And then you've made friends for life," she said.

During the interview, Alice's caretaker side took over as she politely tried to stop the line of questioning. She had something cooking on the stove and was expecting guests.

When she returned from stirring a pot in the kitchen, she considered a final question — about the Kings' legacy, hers and Bruce's.

"Mine's always children, children, children," Alice said. "A lot of things I worked with for children brings back fond memories, but I guess the best thing is getting the department for children, youth and families going in New Mexico. (It was) the first in the nation, and it's still there, it's still working. It's growing and hopefully we'll one day be able to stop a lot of the problems were are having to deal with family and children right now."

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter, at www.santafenewmexican.com.