Catherine Baker Knoll, who pushed through two generations of barriers to women in politics, was honored yesterday -- born the daughter of a McKees Rocks baker and returned there in death as her state's lieutenant governor.

The first woman to capture the second-highest office in Pennsylvania was praised and lauded in ways that sometimes eluded her in the sharp-elbowed world of politics, where her occasional malapropisms, like calling Gov. Ed Rendell "Edward G. Robinson," masked a political drive that sometimes blindsided her rivals.

In the end, the lieutenant governor had yet a final surprise.

"Before the primary, we talked about a possible run for governor in 2010," her son, Charles Knoll Jr., told 800 surprised people at the close of her funeral at St. Paul Cathedral.

She wavered, he said, between that and attending Duquesne Law School.

"She did, however, agree to keep the option for a gubernatorial bid open," Mr. Knoll said.

Then, capturing his mother's style, he thanked those attending, including "Midge and Gov. Edward G. Robinson."

Mr. Rendell was there, laughing at the crack, and misty-eyed as the casket was borne from the cathedral. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. and Arlen Specter and members of the General Assembly came as well. Elsie Hillman, grand dame of the state's Republicans, sat alongside Democratic Auditor General Jack Wagner and joined him in offering the prayers of intercession.

Too came the ordinary citizens who had brushed shoulders, pressed hands and shared chicken dinners and neighborhood coffees with Mrs. Knoll.

"She was an old pioneer," said Peg Wilson, state committee member from Washington County. "The Democratic women always loved her. That's what carried her in Western Pennsylvania."

Sal Sirabella, her longtime chief of staff, said the boss worked endless hours, reaching out to voters in places other politicians ignored.

"All those towns. Monroe County. Nanticoke. Moosic. Little towns like that," he said. "There was another place way up in the northeast in Wayne County -- she'd always go up in there. She'd go to the Democratic dinners not that had 500 people but that had 100 people. She'd been doing that for years and they all knew her. And once you go they invite you back, because you're the only one they see."

Jimmy Cvetic, a longtime boxing promoter, came to honor a politician he said gladly came to the many bouts he sponsored in the Pittsburgh area, sometimes consoling the losing fighters, telling them they were champions anyway.

"If I had boxers like Catherine Baker Knoll, I'd have a whole bunch of Golden Gloves champions," Mr. Cvetic said.

Mr. Cvetic said he occasionally traveled with Mrs. Knoll to Walter Reed Army Hospital, where the lieutenant governor spent hours on end visiting with wounded Pennsylvania soldiers and their families. He bristled at the memory of a controversy several years ago when Mrs. Knoll was criticized by the family of a Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq after she visited the funeral home and gave the family her business card.

"She would spend hours, four hours, five hours with these kids. She would give them cards. She would buy movies for them. It was funny, it would make me laugh, because these are hard men, strong men. She would buy them movies like 'Bambi.' She would spend $200, $300 of her own money," he said.

On those occasions, too, she gave the soldiers her business cards, asking them to call when they needed help, be it with benefits or finding a job after military service.

Mrs. Knoll, who twice served as Pennsylvania treasurer and lieutenant governor, died Nov. 12 of cancer. She was remembered yesterday as a mother figure to many who touched her.

"If anything, Lt. Gov. Knoll tended to see so many people in need as members of her extended family," said Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl, who delivered the homily.

The funeral stretched for more than 2 1/2 hours, and was preceded by a final drive through McKees Rocks, her son, Charles Knoll, said last night.

"We stopped for a brief prayer at St. John of God Parish where she was a member, then took a loop around the old home and through West Park and then down Island Avenue. I guess there must have been 10 or 12 in the motorcade," he said.

Most of them were state and local police as well as cars from the sheriff's department.

Interment services will be private, the family said.

In 1988, Mrs. Knoll defied then Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. and swamped his chosen nominee for Pennsylvania treasurer in the Democratic primary. She went on to win that election and every statewide race she ran thereafter, save for a third-place finish in the 1994 Democratic primary for governor.

She holds the record as the top vote-getter in any statewide election.

"Catherine was one of a kind and I don't think we'll ever see her like again in Pennsylvania. A trailblazer, a pioneer. Broke the glass ceiling for women in this state," Mr. Rendell said.