Ms. Carnahan was appointed to the seat after her husband was posthumously elected to it just weeks after he was killed in a plane crash in 2000.
Jean Carnahan, who in 2001 became the first woman to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate after being appointed to fill her husband’s seat following his posthumous election, died on Tuesday. She was 90.
Her family released a statement saying that Ms. Carnahan died following a brief illness.
“Mom passed peacefully after a long and rich life,” the statement said, without specifying the cause of death. “She was a fearless trailblazer. She was brilliant, creative, compassionate and dedicated to her family and her fellow Missourians,” her family said in the statement.
Ms. Carnahan, the wife of Mel Carnahan, was appointed to the U.S. Senate from Missouri in December 2000, following the posthumous election of her husband, who was killed just weeks beforehand with their son and a longtime aide in a plane crash. She was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2001.
Ms. Carnahan, a moderate Democrat who had never held public office before being appointed to fill in for her husband, served for nearly two years. She lost to Jim Talent, a Republican, by 22,000 votes in November 2002.
Following her defeat, Ms. Carnahan told The New York Times that despite the tumult and heartache she had endured, she had always pushed bitterness aside. “It’s an acid in your life that corrodes your soul,” she told The Times.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
A complete obituary will follow.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
