Erma Ora Byrd; Senator's Wife

Erma Ora James Byrd, 88, the wife of U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) died March 25 at their home in McLean. The cause of death was not immediately available, but the Associated Press said she had been ill for five years.

The senator's Web site said she grew up in the West Virginia coal fields and met the future senator when both were students in grade school in Raleigh County, W.Va.

They were married May 29, 1937, when both were 19, according to the site.

At the time of their 65th wedding anniversary in 2002, the senator said that "in my life, Erma Ora Byrd is the diamond. She is a priceless treasure, a multifaceted woman of great insight and wisdom, of quiet humor and common sense."

She once said in a newspaper interview that she left politics to her husband. "The people elected him, not me," she said.

The account on the Web site described a couple who "came up the hard way."

It said that their first refrigerator was part of an orange crate nailed to the side of their home and that in their early years, "they spent many hours at square dances and community events, where Robert would play his fiddle and Erma would dance."

In addition to her husband, survivors include two daughters, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.