Margaretta "Happy" Rockefeller, the widow of former U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, has died at the age of 88. Happy Rockefeller was one of the first women to talk publicly about breast cancer when she was diagnosed in the 1970s.
"Happy," a nickname that stuck since her childhood, died peacefully in her sleep on Tuesday in her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. after a brief illness, family spokesman Fraser Seitel said, according to the New York Post.
"She was blessed with great commonsense and insight into human beings and human nature," said longtime friend Richard Parsons, according to the New York Post. "I thought she was extraordinary."
Happy Rockefeller and her husband, also a former New York Governor, were both divorced when they married in 1963, which was quite scandalous at the time. The marriage was blamed for Nelson Rockefeller's inability to secure the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. "Most people can get a divorce without having the world hang on it," Happy Rockefeller once told a reporter, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Happy Rockefeller was so frank that her husband's campaign staff created a rule that she was not to be quoted directly, according to Women's Wear Daily. Normal Norell, a designer whose clothes Happy Rockefeller often wore, once said, "She has that good family, Ivy League look. She will always look right - never gussied up, never silly. She is not interested in excitement for excitement's sake."
After four terms as New York's First Lady, Happy Rockefeller's husband was appointed vice president by Gerald Ford after the Watergate scandal in 1974. Shortly after, Happy Rockefeller was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. Ford's wife, Betty, joined Happy Rockefeller in bringing information about the disease to the public.
"She went through it with dignity and was one of the first role models," Parsons said, according to the New York Post. "She carried herself unapologetically."
According to the New York Post, the family released a statement, saying that Happy Rockefeller "above all, was dedicated to her immediate and extended family and greatly loved spending time with her children and grandchildren. She had a firm belief in the importance of family and the nurturing, support, and perspective it can provide to its members."
Funeral services have not been announced.
