Hilary Clinton’s Mother, Dorothy Rodham, Dies At 92

By Osagie Alonge

Dorothy Rodham, mother of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former US President Bill Clinton’s mother-in-law, has passed away. Rodham died Tuesday, October 1, 2011 at age 92 after an illness in Washington, D.C.

A statement released by the Clinton family, heralded Rodham as a woman who ‘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’.

During all Hilary Clinton’s successful wins and defeats, Rodham managed to stay out of the media. She rarely granted interviews on her daughter or son-in-law, Bill the former President

Dorothy Howell Rodham was born in Chicago in 1919, the daughter of a city firefighter. In her autobiography, “Living History,” Hillary Clinton described her mother’s childhood as lonely and loveless.

Born June 4, 1919, Dorothy was described as a homemaker. US President Barack Obama praised Rodham as a ‘remarkable person’ who also was ‘strong, determined and gifted’.