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Her Inheritance: An Eagerness to Serve

Her parents instilled a sense of civic responsibility in the children, driving them into poor neighborhoods in Buffalo to deliver the food, clothing and furniture that the family had collected. And yet the Courtneys [Governor Hochul's maiden name] struggled themselves. “We used to shop at the used-clothing store,” Ms. Heinze recalled.

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In high school, Ms. Hochul acquired her interest in politics, after a teacher took her class to Buffalo City Hall for a tour. She began doing volunteer work for a variety of politicians during summer vacations.

In 1976, she went to Syracuse University, where she became something of an activist, one time leading a boycott of the college bookstore after students complained that the store was charging outrageously high prices. (By then, her father had gone to work at an information technology company, where he rose to become president.)

In college, she also threw herself into another cause: trying to persuade the university to name a stadium it was building after Ernie Davis, the legendary Syracuse running back who died of leukemia at a young age.