Former U.S. Senator from Topeka, Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker dies at 94
She was not on the list.
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Three-term U.S. Senator from Kansas, Nancy
Landon Kassebaum Baker, has died Friday at the age of 94, according to her
family.
Kassebaum was born in Topeka and served in the U.S. Senate
from 1978 to 1997. She became the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate
representing the Sunflower State, according to Kansas History.
The Family of Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker said in a
statement that Kassebaum’s life was filled with a “deep love for Kansas.”
Born on July 29,
1932, in Topeka, Kansas, for 94 years she relished the support of family and
friends from all over the world. Her years were filled with remarkable
successes, challenges, and above all, a deep love for Kansas.
The Family of
Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker
The family stated there will be a private memorial service
on a later date and is requesting donations to the Kansas 4-H Foundation or the
Capper Foundation.
She served as a member of the United States Senate from 1978
to 1997. She was the daughter of Alf Landon, who was Governor of Kansas from
1933 to 1937 and the 1936 Republican nominee for president, and the wife of
former United States Senate Majority Leader and diplomat Howard Baker.
With her victory in the 1978 U.S. Senate election in Kansas,
Kassebaum entered the national spotlight as the only woman in the U.S. Senate
at the time, and as the first woman to represent Kansas in that chamber. She
was also the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her
husband having previously served in Congress.
In her three terms in the Senate, Kassebaum demonstrated a
political independence that made her a key figure in building bi-partisan
coalitions in foreign affairs and domestic policy. As chair of the Senate
Subcommittee on African Affairs, she played a limited role in legislation to
sanction apartheid South Africa. The legislation which was enacted in 1986,
over a presidential veto, was drafted by Senators Richard Lugar, William Roth,
Mitch McConnell, and Bob Dole, although later in life, Kassebaum claimed credit
for it. As chair of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, she led
the fight for major health care reforms that, for the first time, assured
health insurance coverage for people changing jobs with pre-existing medical
conditions.
Nancy Josephine Landon was born in Topeka, Kansas, on July
29, 1932, the daughter of Kansas First Lady Theo (née Cobb) and Governor Alf
Landon. She attended Topeka High School, and graduated in 1950. She
graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1954, where she was a
member of Kappa Alpha Theta, and where she met her first husband, John Philip
Kassebaum. They were married in 1955. In 1956, she received a master's degree
in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan. They settled in Maize,
Kansas, where they raised four children.
She worked as vice president of Kassebaum Communications, a
family-owned company that operated several radio stations. Kassebaum also
served on the Maize School Board. In 1975, she and Philip were legally
separated; their divorce became final in March 1979. Kassebaum worked in
Washington, D.C., as a caseworker for Senator James B. Pearson of Kansas in
1975, but returned to Kansas the following year.
