She looked just like the Susan Farmer I remembered, still in a classic preppy uniform: fuchsia ribbed turtleneck, black slacks, and of course, her ever-present string of pearls. There is no way you would know she has been fighting a difficult cancer for eight years, or that things have taken a sobering turn.

She cracked the door open, saw me standing there with a photographer, and said playfully, “No comment.”

Of course, Susan Farmer always had a comment, which is in part how she achieved a place in history, becoming the first woman in Rhode Island to win statewide office.

She was secretary of state for two terms, starting in 1983. Usually, few voters can name the person in that post, but everyone could when Farmer was in office. She was a striking blond figure, unafraid to get out front. Once, she flew to meet with the secretary of the Navy after hearing some Rhode Island bases might be closed.

She went on to lose a tough race for lieutenant governor in 1986, but for the next 17 years, ran Rhode Island’s public TV station, Channel 36, in a way that kept her a household name.

When she took the job, the station was raising a mere $300,000 a year and there was talk it would go dark. By the time Farmer stepped down, she’d gotten it to $2 million.

They discovered cancer in her stomach in October of 2001. It was a rare form called GIST — Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors. Hoping to get rid of it, they removed half her stomach. Fifteen months later, in 2003, it had spread to her liver. They told her the usual survival is less than two years. But they began experimental drugs that put the tumors to sleep for over triple that time. A month ago, the tumors started growing again, and now there are few options. One is for half of her liver to be removed. It is considered major surgery. Her doctors are weighing it.

“But I’m going on eight years,” Farmer told me. “Very few live that long.”

Despite there being no good alternative, part of her would welcome a reprieve from such an operation.

“The sun’s coming out,” she told me. She wants to golf and garden. “I love having my hands in the dirt.”

She shares her home with her husband Malcolm Farmer, lawyer and one-time Providence councilman. Their two daughters are grown and married.

Her father, Ralph Lawson, ran a manufacturing firm producing elastic knitting in Pawtucket. Farmer went to the Wheeler School, then the Stoneleigh-Burnham School for girls in Greenfield, Mass. She went on to Garland Junior College, which later merged with Simmons College. She studied at Brown, as well.

In her 20s, Farmer was among the more competitive female amateur tennis players in the state. Many expected her to simply live an East Side, fundraising life, but she was intrigued with problems beyond.

One day, she read in the paper that the Marathon House drug rehab center — now Phoenix House — was in such financial difficulty that residents were getting only two meals a day. On impulse, she drove to the building and asked a simple question: “Tell me what I can do.”

She eventually became its board chair for four years. That was the start of Susan Farmer’s public life.

Some, she knew, assumed she was a privileged preppy who couldn’t possibly be serious about people in need. But she worked hard and won respect. In time, she began programs at the girls’ Training School, served on the Providence Human Relations Commission and was named court-appointed advocate for abused children.

By 1982, she was leaving the East Side for factory gates, bowling alleys and senior centers running for secretary of state. I asked if she considered changing her look to better appeal to Rhode Island’s blue-collar electorate.

“If I put on tattered blue jeans and a sweatshirt, you’d know what I was,” said Farmer of her preppy bearing and ever-present pearls. Folks, she felt, respected both her work and her honesty about who she was. She won the election.

Afterwards, playing off a line from the best-selling Preppy Handbook, a Journal columnist imagined people from the right clubs saying, “Look, Muffy, a secretary of state for us.” The line and nickname stuck, and Farmer told me she’s still amused by both today.

She ended her long career on June 1, 2004, when she retired from Channel 36. She had worked there almost three years with cancer, and it was time.

“It was hard to give it up,” she said. “Even now it makes my eyes water.” She was speaking not just of the station job, but public life.

“I loved it,” she told me.

When I asked her age, she winced and said, “I can barely say it; s-s-sixty-six.”

Then she flexed her arms and said she works out. I told her she seemed to have barely aged.

“You know,” she said, “dim lights and Estee Lauder make a woman look so good.”

I asked what a typical day is like for her now.

She sleeps more than she used to, explaining it happens with medication.

She likes to cook, read and do crossword puzzles. She visits her mom, who is 94, at the Epoch extended care facility. She likes to spend time with her two daughters, both 40ish and married. One is in real estate in Rhode Island. The other runs a production company in California and just visited with her two young children.“I was bereft when they left,” she said.

Last month, 49 years after graduation, she vacationed in Florida with her boarding school suite-mates. But she doesn’t go to many events anymore, in part because she can’t predict when she might feel ill.

She does like connecting by computer.

“I’m really cool because I’m on Facebook,” she said.

She doesn’t miss the pace of public life, having spent years being out almost every night. But strangers still approach her, often at the East Side Marketplace, where she shops.

“Thank you for the work you did,” some will say. “I just love Rhode Island PBS.”

Or they’ll just ask: “How are you doing?”

She’ll smile and tell them she’s trying hard to set medical records. Often, if people are interested, she’ll offer details. She said it helps her to speak openly.

“Lots of people clam up and don’t talk about it,” said Farmer. She feels it’s more painful to have it bottled up. And she hopes sharing thoughts could help others who face illness.

“Enormous gifts come with cancer,” she told me. “Everyone raises their eyebrows when I say that but those who have cancer agree.”

Being put on notice, she explained, makes you realize that petty resentments are a waste of time.

“I don’t hold grudges anymore,” said Farmer. “You can resolve differences. You learn forgiveness.”

She has also slowed down.

“I was always very type-A. Now I’m a Type-B and I like it. If I get in a traffic jam, it doesn’t matter. I used to want to get as far as I could as fast as I could. Now, I’m happy to be where I am. I’m very calm.”

Farmer has few low moments.

“I’ve never even thought, ‘Why me?’ ” she said. “Why anybody?” And then: “If I start getting all sad and down, it ruins another day.”

I asked what she’s proudest of.

“Raising two wonderful women. That’s the best thing I am, a mother.”

Better than secretary of state and head of Channel 36?

“Those are a very close second.”

And she said she likes to think she opened a door for women in politics.

When I first talked to Susan Farmer a few weeks ago, she was ready for the liver surgery. I called her the other day, and she said her doctors were now unsure it would help. That leaves her medical future equally unsure.

She did not seem upset.

She said she was looking forward to getting into her garden.

mpatinkin@projo.com