John Davidson “Jay” Rockefeller, the former Governor of West Virginia, and later five-term senator for the state, passed away at his home in Washington D.C at age 89.
Family representative Shelley Rodgers confirmed his death. No cause of death was given at the time.
A scion of the Rockefeller family, and the rare Democrat among them, Senator Rockefeller was born was born to a life of immense wealth and privilege in New York in 1937, the second child of John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Ferry Rockefeller. He attended Harvard College, before pulling out after his junior year to spend three years in Tokyo. He returned, and graduated in 1961, before beginning his career in public service. Under then-president John F. Kennedy, he worked for the Peace Corps in D.C, and then continued his service in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
He then returned to the U.S. to work under President Johnson, with the Volunteers in Service to America, which took him to Emmons, West Virginia from 1964-65. There, he was an emphatic community organizer, working with mining families. Initially, they were weary, but he was eventually adopted by the town. In 1966, he was elected to the West Virginia Hou...