For much of her youth, former U.S. Rep. Mia Love called Connecticut home.
Love, a graduate of the University of Hartford who spent part of her childhood in Norwalk, became the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress. She died Sunday at the age of 49 after seeking treatment for brain cancer.
In 2017, Love delivered a commencement address at the University of Hartford.
“Remember that your goal is to rise with — and not over — others,” she told students. “There is an old Scottish saying, ‘Thee lift me, and I'll lift thee, and together we'll ascend.’”
At the time, Love was facing the ire of President Donald Trump, after she had supported one of one of his rivals in the Republican primary, and said she would not vote for Trump. She was voted out of Congress in the next election.
“We cannot rise if we are constantly spewing divisive, demonizing rhetoric,” she said. “Someone wisely said, ‘speak in anger and you will give the best speech you will ever live to regret.’”
Love's family moved to Norwalk, Connecticut in 1981. Her mother worked as a nurse and father worked "several jobs to make ends meet," according to her congressional biography.
She got involved with the theater while attending Norwalk High School, where she graduated in 1993. Love graduated from the University of Hartford with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1997.
In 2003, Love entered politics after winning a seat on the city council in Saratoga Springs, a growing community about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. She later became the city’s mayor.
In 2012, Love narrowly lost a bid for the House but ran again two years later and defeated first-time candidate Doug Owens by about 7,500 votes.
Love didn’t emphasize her race during her campaigns, but she acknowledged the significance of her election after her 2014 victory. She said her win defied naysayers who had suggested that a Black, Republican, Mormon woman couldn’t win a congressional seat in overwhelmingly white Utah.
In an op-ed published earlier this month in the Deseret News, Love described the version of America she grew up loving and shared her enduring wish for the nation to become less divisive.
“In the end, I hope that my life will have mattered and made a difference for the nation I love and the family and friends I adore,” Love wrote. “I hope you will see the America I know in the years ahead, that you will hear my words in the whisper of the wind of freedom and feel my presence in the flame of the enduring principles of liberty. My living wish and fervent prayer for you and for this nation is that the America I have known is the America you fight to preserve.”
Connecticut Public's Patrick Skahill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
