Mary Cathey Hanford, 102; Mother of Elizabeth Dole, Community Volunteer

Mary Cathey Hanford, a civic leader and mother of Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, has died. She was 102.

Hanford, who lived to see her daughter elected in November 2002 as North Carolina’s first female senator, died Wednesday at Rowan Regional Medical Center. She had not been in ill health, but began to feel some discomfort Wednesday night, the Salisbury Post reported. The cause of death apparently was heart failure.

“Throughout her life, Mother provided us with an example of what it means to live every day of your life with grace, dignity, generosity and spiritual strength, and what it means to love a community and to work tirelessly to make it a better place,” Dole said in a prepared statement Thursday on behalf of herself and her older brother, John Hanford. “We consider ourselves profoundly blessed to have had her for our mother.”

A lifetime resident of Salisbury, Hanford was active in volunteer causes, including historic preservation, the Red Cross and the local PTA. She served for 45 years on an antique show committee that raised money to found a museum for Rowan County, and started the Cathey-Hanford House, a center for senior citizens and Alzheimer’s patients.

Born May 22, 1901, she married John Van Hanford on May 1, 1917. Her husband ran a florist business. He died in 1978.

On her 100th birthday, Hanford’s family threw her a party and invited the public. Some 500 people came, including television weatherman Willard Scott, who asked her what, after a century of looking after her hometown and her family, she planned to do with her next 100 years. “I’m going to let them look after me,” she said.

Dole, who married Kansas Sen. Bob Dole in the 1970s, served as a Cabinet secretary in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and headed the Red Cross, has repeatedly referred to her mother as “my best friend.”

When she returned to North Carolina in 2001 to run for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, she listed the Hanford family home where her mother still lived as her residence.

In addition to her son and daughter, Hanford is survived by two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.