SALEM, N.H. (AP) – Janet Smith, one of six plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that changed the way the state cares for developmentally disabled adults, has died. She was 42.

Smith couldn’t talk or feed and bathe herself. She communicated with humming noises and gestures. For most of her life, she was unable to walk. She needed full-time care to negotiate each day.

For the last 16 years of her life, Smith got that care at Brady House, a community-based home for developmentally disabled adults located right down the road from her mother, Freda Smith.

Brady House and others like it are the result of a 1978 lawsuit brought on behalf of Smith and five other disabled children by their parents.

When Janet was 3 months old, she had a seizure that left her with severe brain damage. When she was 5 years old, she moved into the now-defunct Laconia State School, after her mother had a breakdown from the stress of caring for her.

Freda Smith wasn’t allowed to see her daughter for six weeks.

“I saw, even then, that her spirit had been broken,” Freda Smith told the Sunday Monitor.

Janet became thin, lost her ability to walk and got bruises the staff couldn’t explain. She lived in a bare room with other patients and had no privacy.

“Many of the wards had nothing in them but a couple of wooden benches. Children would be milling around or sitting on the floor. There was nothing for them,” said Freda Smith, now 75.

Some of the people who worked there really cared about the residents, but they were just overwhelmed, Freda Smith said.

Some children spent the day in pens, too small for them to lie down in, without any toys. Wheelchairs were tied to radiators. Cohen saw adults lined up for dinner, fed pureed food with a large spoon.

Janet Smith’s life was better than most, her mother said. The Smiths visited her every weekend and sometimes during the week. Janet came home for holidays and the summer.

Freda Smith and others formed a parents’ association and pressed for changes. Then in 1978, they filed a lawsuit with the help of New Hampshire Legal Assistance. In 1980, a judge ordered the state to provide the least restrictive care possible for developmentally disabled residents. The school closed in 1990.

Janet’s death comes at a time when state officials are proposing cuts in some programs that help severly disabled people and their families. The waiting list for adults with developmental disabilities to get state services is now 400 to 500 people long.

Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen has proposed reducing funding for the Katie Beckett program, which provides financial assistance to families of severely disabled children.

Freda Smith recently demanded a meeting with Gov. Craig Benson about the waiting list for developmentally disabled adults. She said the meeting lasted 10 minutes and was held in a room with no chairs.

Richard Cohen, executive director of the Disabilities Rights Center of New Hampshire, says Janet Smith’s story is a reminder that even the most severely disabled people need a place where they are valued and cared for.

“It’s not all about doing math and communicating,” Cohen said. “You can have a quality of life. You need to be in a small community for people to appreciate it and then kind of reinforce it.”

JudyLee Guilbeault, who runs Brady House, feels as if she lost her best friend.

“How could somebody who is nonverbal speak volumes?” she asked. “It’s unbelievable how quiet the world is now without her noise and her toys and her presence.”

Janet Smith died March 20 from esophageal cancer. The men and women who cared for her at Brady House were her pallbearers. On Saturday, her mother planted white tulips around her grave. Her daughter loved to hold flowers by the stem and twirl them.

AP-ES-04-11-04 1408EDT