When Ellen Sauerbrey developed an interest in politics, she didn't have to look far for a mentor. He was sitting on the other side of the dinner table.

It was the early 1960s, and her husband, Wilmer, liked to talk about the world that was changing at lightning speed. He gave her books on history and economics. Together, they read economist Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and Sen. Barry M. Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative."

By the time the young couple danced at Spiro T. Agnew's gubernatorial ball, she shared virtually all her husband's

conservative views.

Today, the Sauerbreys rarely have time for any discussion, philosophical or otherwise. She is on the road, tirelessly campaigning to become Maryland's first Republican governor since Agnew -- and the first female governor in state history. He is content to stay home, to sell real estate, putter in the yard and walk their German shepherd, Hans.

"I think she needs lots of people to support her," Wilmer Sauerbrey says, "and those people have to feel comfortable that they have a direct line to Ellen without her spouse being in the way."

Friends say they can barely count on one hand the times the 63-year-old retired engineer has interfered with a campaign decision. He doesn't want a seat on the campaign bus -- or at the front table at fund-raisers crowded with his wife's fans.

On the occasions when he does accompany his wife to a political party, only the "Wil Sauerbrey" name tag keeps him from being mistaken for another silver-haired Rotarian making small talk. He tends to wear old-fashioned white shirts and narrow neckties, the way he might have while working at AAI, the Hunt Valley defense contractor, 25 years ago.

"To tell you the truth, if you didn't know his last name, you would not know his wife is an important political figure," says Dawn Covahey, corporate sales manager at Coldwell Banker Grempler Realty in Towson, where Sauerbrey is an agent.

Helen Kadlec, who went to college with Ellen, agrees: "He doesn't seem to mind letting her be in the limelight."

It's been that way throughout her political career, ever since she was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1978. He had considered running for office himself back then, but figured he didn't have the time between work and attending law school at night.

Conservative still

But just because he's not a presence in her campaign doesn't mean Wilmer Sauerbrey has changed since he introduced his wife to politics. Friends and political allies agree that in the Sauerbrey household, he's the real conservative. His wife may be moderating her message, but he still opposes any form of abortion, welfare and even routine government loans.

"Wil's tendency is to tell Ellen, 'Look what your liberal friends are doing now,' " says House Minority Leader Robert H. Kittleman of Howard County, a longtime friend of the Sauerbreys.

"He believes government has no business fooling in the economy at all," Kittleman adds. "Ellen might back bonds or other programs. She's more tolerant."

David Blumberg, chairman of the Republican Party in Baltimore, agrees. "Wil has a basic distrust of government in general. Ellen as a legislator has seen that government really can make a difference in a lot of ways."

Just how deep is the distrust? Wilmer Sauerbrey has formulated his own golden rule:

"With one exception, any problems that ever existed in society have either been created by government or made worse by government." Only disease, he says, is not government's fault.

That kind of blunt talk makes some suspect that Ellen R. Sauerbrey's advisers are just as happy that he wants no part in the campaign. The Republican front-runner has been trying to recast herself, to overcome an image of doctrinaire, one-dimensional conservatism, as she prepares for a likely rematch with Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening.

"You ask Wil how he feels about something, and he'll tell you," says Richard Montalto, who orchestrated the 1994 Sauerbrey campaign. "He has strong opinions, and there are people who tend to sidestep straight questions who would prefer that he's not around."

Sauerbrey's deliberate, soft-spoken husband could suddenly find himself thrust into a unique role. He would be Maryland's first gentleman.

Her husband supported her decision to try again, after she came within 5,993 votes of victory four years ago, though it meant more time apart. Still, she wonders about a move to the governor's mansion.

"I don't know," she says. "I can't imagine my husband really living in Annapolis. He's a very private person, and he likes to be in an environment where he can be out in the woods. He likes to putter. I think he's really a farmer at heart."

He's not out planting soybeans. But Wilmer Sauerbrey does garden and has devoted countless hours to refinishing the hardwood floors and fixing the old farmhouse in northern Baltimore County that they bought for $80,000 in 1971.

He decided to "retire from the corporate rat race" in 1976, after working as an engineer at Black & Decker, then AAI, and finally from home for a Seattle-based firm.

For the son of German immigrants, who had paid his own way through college, it wasn't easy to sit back on the porch. He was soon busy with real estate sales and other investments.

He has speculated on a string of properties offered at tax sales in Baltimore and other suburban counties. Like other investors in the tax-sale game, Sauerbrey has no intention of buying the properties he bids on. His goal is to collect from the owner the unpaid taxes plus interest, ranging from 18 percent in some suburbs to 24 percent in the city. The only risk is losing the few thousand dollars he puts up to pay the taxes -- small compared to the potential payoff in interest.

Wilmer Sauerbrey also follows the stock market fairly closely. The couple inherited stock some years ago, and he has built up the portfolio to include tens of thousands of shares in 78 companies. Based on her financial disclosure reports, their stock portfolio was estimated at $622,000 four years ago; as of Aug. 28, it was worth about $1.8 million. Wilmer Sauerbrey declines to confirm the estimate, but notes wryly that he had taken a hit in the turmoil of the past week.

Basic principles

Those who know him say Sauerbrey's basic principles, his conservative economic beliefs, and even his mannerisms, have remained remarkably constant. They were forged in his childhood.

His parents left their deeply depressed homeland in 1922. His mother arrived as a servant; she would name her son after one of the people she worked for, ophthalmologist Dr. William H. Wilmer, founder of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His father found work as a groundskeeper.

They settled in a predominantly German neighborhood in the Towson area, and Sauerbrey spoke no English until he went to school. He became "a very good fighter against the bigger kids" during the anti-German fever of World War II. In fourth grade, he remembers thinking a school handout labeled "current events" was nothing more than propaganda.

It was while he was delivering newspapers as a 16-year-old that he met the 14-year-old Ellen Richmond. They dated through high school and after he went to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where he earned his tuition from a box-lunch business, selling corsages and setting up a sundries stand in his fraternity. She attended Western Maryland College in Westminster, and they saw each other at weekend football games.

After they married in 1959 and Ellen Sauerbrey started teaching high school biology, she became more interested in politics. She also wanted to know more about German history. The couple joined the Baltimore Kickers, a German social club that sponsors soccer teams. She listened to his parents' tales of the inflation they had fled in post-World War I Germany.

In 1966, her husband took her to visit his relatives in East and West Germany. The trip left a lasting impression; she still mentions it on the campaign trail.

"It was a huge eye-opener," she says, to see the debilitated East German towns across the barbed wire from the prosperous West. Even more than before, she agreed with her husband that government's power had to be curbed, that individuals had to rely on themselves.

That hasn't changed, both say. Ellen Sauerbrey may be reaching out to moderate voters, she may believe that some government services are necessary. But she still wants to reduce government spending and cut income taxes.

"We most profoundly agree on the basic premise that individuals make better decisions, and government can really interfere with people's ability to work hard and make the most of themselves," she says.

For his part, Wilmer Sauerbrey says the campaign is making an effort "to educate the public that Ellen is not a hard, uncaring type of individual." Still, he says, his wife will fulfill his long-sought wish "to get government off our backs and out of our pockets."

If he hasn't given much thought to what the future might bring, he's clear about two things. He will keep his work and hobbies; he will tend to his investments and go hiking in New Hampshire's White Mountains with Hans.

And even though he believes his wife would "be the best governor the state has ever seen," he would be quite comfortable having no role in Annapolis at all.

Pub Date: 9/07/98