Sending prayers to friends and family.
Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president, has died of blood cancer after a 12-year battle, her family said Saturday. She was 75.
Ferraro, who was a Fox News contributor and a fixture on the national political stage ever since Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale picked her as a running mate in 1984, died in a Boston hospital surrounded by loved ones, her family said.
Ferraro "was widely known as a leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice," her family said. "To us, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and aunt, a woman devoted to and deeply loved by her family. Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed."
Born in Newburgh, N.Y., in 1935, Ferraro was a New York City schoolteacher before she began her political career. She earned her law degree from Fordham Law School while teaching second grade.
She was elected to Congress in 1978, representing a district in Queens, N.Y.. She served for six years before Mondale tapped her as a running mate to run against incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Reagan won 49 of the 50 states, the largest landslide in nearly half a century.
Some observers said legal troubles involving her husband and son were a drag on Ferraro's later political ambitions, which included her unsuccessful bids for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in New York in 1992 and 1998.
Ferraro is survived by her husband of 50 years, John Zaccaro; her three children and their spouses; and her eight grandchildren.