#Louisiana remembers the life and legacy of Lindy Boggs

Former representative Lindy Boggs was a civic activist and community leader. She passed away at age 97.

Lindy Boggs, congresswoman and Democratic leader, dies at 97

By Stephanie Hanes, Published: July 27

Lindy Boggs, a Democratic Party doyenne from Louisiana whose charm and political acumen helped her husband rise to U.S. House majority leader and who launched her own congressional and diplomatic career after his disappearance in an airplane crash, died July 27 at her home in Chevy Chase. She was 97.

The death was confirmed by a daughter, broadcast journalist Cokie Roberts, who said the cause of death was not immediately known.

Politics was central to Lindy Boggs’s life long before she won a special election in 1973 to succeed her husband, Thomas Hale Boggs Sr., better known as Hale Boggs. Her family, the Claibornes, traced its roots to colonial Jamestown and was one of the country’s early political dynasties.

She arrived in Washington in 1941, the 24-year-old wife of the youngest freshman in the House of Representatives; she quickly delved into the politics and strategies of the Capitol, acting as a Democratic hostess, campaign manager and adviser to her husband and scores of other politicians.

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