Elizabeth Edwards Dies at 61

DECEMBER 7, 2010 TAGS: POLITICS, OBITS ADD A COMMENT

Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday afternoon after a years-long battle with breast cancer at her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

From the New York Times:

In a life of idyllic successes and crushing reverses, Mrs. Edwards was an accomplished lawyer, the mother of four children and the wife of a wealthy, handsome senator with sights on the White House. But their 16-year-old son was killed in a car crash, cancer struck her at age 55, the political dreams died and, within months, her husband admitted to having had an extramarital affair with a campaign videographer.

The scandal over the affair faded after his disclosure in 2008. But in 2009, Mrs. Edwards resurrected it in a new book and interviews and television appearances, telling how her husband had misrepresented the infidelity to her, rocked their marriage and spurned her advice to abandon his run for the presidency, a decision in which she ultimately acquiesced.

From the Washington Post 

Mrs. Edwards, a self-described "anti-Barbie" because of her real-woman figure and engaged intellect, was considered by political insiders to be the co-architect of former North Carolina senator John Edwards's failed bid for Democratic nomination to the White House in 2008.

During that campaign, she publicly took on acerbic conservative commentator Ann Coulter, spoke out about her disagreement with her husband on his support for the Iraq War resolution and her support for same-sex marriage, and addressed how she coped with the death of their 16-year-old son in a car accident.

Hometown Raleigh News and Observer tells of John and Elizabeth’s law school courtship:

"I'm 5 feet 2, dark-haired and could hardly be further from the Barbie figure," Edwards once said. "I think of myself as a fairly serious person."

After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she spent two years in graduate school with the goal of earning a doctorate in English literature and pursuing a teaching career. But job prospects for English graduates were poor, and she entered law school, something her mother had always wanted her to do.

It was at UNC's law school that Elizabeth Anania met Johnny Edwards, three years her junior.

He was the pseudo-redneck who had been out of the South only once -- on a trip to Washington. He had few intellectual interests. She was a devotee of Henry James and a politically active liberal Democrat.

He was the soft-spoken, get-along guy. She was an outspoken, hot-tempered Italian-American who dominated every social situation. She was also regarded as more of a catch, drawing the attention of many of the boys.

Bloomberg News on the loss of her teenage son:

Elizabeth Edwards, a senator’s wife whose life was shaped by loss, first of a teenage son, then of her husband’s two presidential campaigns, then of a marriage torn by his infidelity, has died. She was 61.

In April 1996, their 16-year-old son, Wade, was killed when his Jeep Grand Cherokee fishtailed and flipped on a wind-swept stretch of highway. His parents, along with their daughter, Cate, channeled their pain into creating a computer lab next to Wade’s high school in Raleigh. John launched the Senate bid he had considered for a few years, defeating Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth in 1998.

The couple also decided to have more children. In 1998, at 48, Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, Emma Claire. Two years later, in 2000, she had a son, Jack. In her memoir, she attributed her late-in-life pregnancies to hormone shots plus “medications and good fortune.”