The Dianne Feinstein they knew: Women of the Senate remember a tireless fighter and a true friend

By MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — In tributes to Sen. Dianne Feinstein after her death, her female colleagues talked about her indomitable, fierce intelligence and how she had paved the way for so many women. But colleagues also mentioned their private times with the California Democrat that were at odds with Feinstein’s tough public persona. They spoke of how she would invite them out to dinners and sometimes give them the clothes off her back. Feinstein was the first female mayor of San Francisco, one of California’s first two female senators and the first female chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The 90-year-old Feinstein died Friday morning at her home in Washington.