Former Sen. Jean Carnahan, the first woman to represent Missouri in the Senate, has died at 90
After Mel Carnahan was posthumously elected following a plane crash, acting Gov. Roger Wilson appointed Jean Carnahan to fill the seat left vacant by her husband’s death.
Former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, who became the first female senator to represent Missouri after she was appointed to replace her husband following his death, died Tuesday. She was 90.
Carnahan, a Democrat, was appointed to the Senate in 2001 after the posthumous election of her husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, and she served until 2002.
“Mom passed peacefully after a long and rich life. She was a fearless trailblazer. She was brilliant, creative, compassionate and dedicated to her family and her fellow Missourians,” her family said in a statement.
Her family did not specify the cause of death but said Carnahan died after a brief illness at a hospice facility in suburban St. Louis.
Carnahan was born Dec. 20, 1933, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the nation’s capital. Her father worked as a plumber and her mother as a hairdresser.
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