Hillary Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham has died aged 92 shortly after midnight on November 1.
Hillary Clinton cancelled a planned trip to London and Turkey after her mother fell ill on Monday.
Dorothy Rodham died in Washington surrounded by her family , according to a release from Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Clinton‘s mother was the last surviving parent of the US Secretary of State.
The family statement remembered Dorothy Rodham as “a warm, generous and strong woman; an intellectual; a woman who told a great joke and always got the joke; an extraordinary friend and, most of all, a loving wife, mother and grandmother.”
“Her family is and will be forever grateful for the gift of Dorothy’s life and for the memories they will treasure forever.”
The statement didn’t say about the nature of Dorothy Rodham’s illness.
Hillary Clinton was due to attend international conferences on cyber-security and Afghanistan but rushed to be at her ailing mother’s side.
Dorothy Rodham was married to Hugh Rodham, an American textile wholesaler who died in 1993.
Hillary Clinton’s mother was born in Chicago, Illinois into a dysfunctional family.
Dorothy Rodham eventually went to live with her father’s parents in California when she was just eight years old, making the 2,000-mile train trip alone with her younger sister.
As a schoolgirl, Dorothy Rodham was banished to her bedroom for a year by her grandparents after she was caught trick-or-treating and at the age of 14 she took a job as a nanny.
When her mother wrote to her while she was still in high school asking her to return to Chicago, she saw it as a chance of a reunion.
However, that hope for reconciliation was short-lived and Dorothy Rodham was asked to work as her mother’s housekeeper.
Determined not to have a family like her own, Dorothy Rodham became a dedicated housewife, raising Hillary and her brothers, Hugh and Tony in Park Ridge Illinois.
Dorothy Rodham was very close to Hillary and moved to Arkansas so that she could watch her granddaughter, Chelsea, grow up.
Dorothy Rodham rarely spoke to the media and makes few public appearances but did appear in 2007 during Hillary Clinton’s presidential nomination bid and on a television advertisement.
She is described by the Washington Post as Hillary Clinton’s “most enduring influence”.
Hillary Clinton was even more protective of her mother than Chelsea Clinton when it comes to making public appearances.
The US Secretary of State wrote in her autobiography Living History: “I’m still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and level-headed woman.”
Hillary Clinton was due in London on Tuesday where she would appear alongside the UK’s foreign secretary, William Hague at London’s Conference on Cyberspace and was due to speak this afternoon.
Later this week Hillary Clinton was expected at a conference will take place in Istanbul on Wednesday focusing on creating a regional strategy for boosting security and economic development in Afghanistan.
Statement on Dorothy Rodham’s death
Dorothy Howell Rodham was born in Chicago on June 4, 1919 and died shortly after midnight on November 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C., surrounded by her family. Her story was a quintessentially American one, largely because she wrote it herself. She overcame abandonment and hardship as a young girl to become the remarkable woman she was — a warm, generous and strong woman; an intellectual; a woman who told a great joke and always got the joke; an extraordinary friend and, most of all, a loving wife, mother and grandmother.
Dorothy is and always will be lovingly remembered by her daughter and son-in-law, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton; her sons and daughters-in-law, Hugh Rodham and Maria Rodham and Tony Rodham and Megan Rodham; her grandchildren, Chelsea Clinton and her husband Marc Mezvinsky, Zachary Rodham, Fiona Rodham and Simon Rodham. She leaves behind many friends from all stages and places in her life, friends from California she met in high school, friends from Little Rock and Washington with whom she explored the world, the people who were first her doctors and then became her friends at George Washington Hospital, to the people she met through her children and grandchildren who became as much her friend as theirs.
To honor Dorothy, her family will hold a private celebration of her life for family and friends. In lieu of flowers and in line with what Dorothy would have wanted, the family have asked that any one who would want to do so would make a donation in Dorothy’s memory to George Washington Hospital (http://www.gwhospital.com/Donations) where she received excellent care and made terrific friends over many years; to the Heifer Project (http://www.heifer.org/), her Christmas gift of choice in 2010 and an organization dear to her heart; or to a local organization meaningful to the giver that helps neglected and mistreated children, a blight Dorothy was determined to remedy until her last day because she knew too well the pain too many children suffer. Her family is and will be forever grateful for the gift of Dorothy’s life and for the memories they will treasure forever.