Jane Gray Muskie, whose husband Edmund Muskie’s 1972 presidential campaign collapsed after he defended her honor with what appeared to be tears in his eyes, died Saturday at her home in Bethesda, Md. She was 77 and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

Muskie accompanied her husband during his rise in politics from the Maine Legislature to the governor’s house, the U.S. Senate and to President Carter’s Cabinet as secretary of state. Edmund Muskie died of a heart attack in 1996 at 81.

While running for president in 1972, then-Senator Muskie took issue with a New Hampshire newspaper, which reprinted an uncomplimentary guest editorial from Newsweek about his wife. “Let’s tell dirty jokes,” it quoted Jane Muskie as saying to reporters aboard her chartered bus. Also: “Pass me my purse – I haven’t had my morning cigarette yet.”

Edmund Muskie choked up several times during the speech, and news organizations reported that he cried, but a dispute has persisted for years whether it was tears or melted snowflakes on his face.

The campaign never recovered, and George McGovern went on to win the nomination, and then lose the general election to President Richard Nixon.

Jane Gray was born in Waterville, Maine, and married Edmund Muskie in 1948, two years after he had been elected to the Maine House of Representatives.

Edmund Muskie was elected governor in 1954, then senator four years later, moving his family to Washington. He gained national prominence in 1968 when Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey chose him as running mate. They lost to Nixon and Spiro Agnew.