DEATHS

AND OBITUARIES

Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker

A private memorial service is planned for Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, 94, Burdick, who died Friday in Manhattan.

Born July 29, 1932, in Topeka to Theo (Cobb) Landon and Kansas governor and later Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon, she was a three-term U.S. senator from Kansas.

Initially elected in 1978 as the first woman to represent Kansas, she was the only woman in the Senate at the time, the first woman elected to the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress, and the first woman to lead a major Senate committee.

As a senator, she was known as a bipartisan consensus builder.

She graduated from Topeka High School in 1950 and the University of Kansas in 1954 and received a master’s degree in diplomatic history in 1956 from the University of Michigan.

She married John Kassebaum in 1956. They settled in Maize and raised their children there. After the couple separated, she became a caseworker for Senator James B. Pearson and later was elected to replace him after he retired.

She did not seek re-election in 1996, serving instead on numerous boards and foundations and marrying retired Senate Majority and Minority Leader Howard Baker, who later served as ambassador to Japan. He died in 2014.

She was a frequent critic of President Donald Trump and Senator Roger Marshall and twice endorsed Kansas’ Democatic governor, Laura Kelly.

Survivors include son William of Burdick. Son Richard Kassebaum and daughter Linda Johnson preceded her in death.

Memorials have been established with Kansas 4-H Foundation and Capper Foundation.