Roberta McCain, R.I.P.

Roberta McCain, mother of the late Senator John McCain has passed away today at the astounding age of 108. No cause of death has been released, but her passing was announced by daughter-in-law Cindy McCain on Twitter. 

Although she lived for more than a century and was prominent in social circles for decades, she didn't become a full fledged public figure until her son's 2008 White House bid where her bluntness occasionally caused her son some headaches. As indicated by the obituary of the McCain matriarch in The Washington Post, it is clear from whom the 2008 GOP presidential nominee inherited his maverick streak:

When Roberta was a freshman at the University of Southern California, she met Jack McCain, a young Navy officer who was serving aboard a battleship with its home port at Long Beach. Against the wishes of her mother, who disapproved of the match, the pair eloped to Tijuana, Mexico. They were married above a bar named Caesar’s.

“Society Coed Elopes With Naval Officer: Roberta Wright Defies Family,” read the headline in the San Francisco Examiner.

“I realize now I was so immature. I just took life as it came — still do,” she told Vogue in 2008.

After 48 years of marriage, her husband had a heart attack on a transatlantic flight home to Washington and died. Her daughter, Jean Alexandra “Sandy” Morgan, died in 2019. Survivors include a son, Joseph P. McCain of Washington; 10 grandchildren; and 11-great grandchildren.

After the death of her husband in 1981, she and her twin (who died in 2011) spent months each year traveling the world. When they could not find a car-rental agency willing to rent to a pair of women in their late 80s, they bought one — a Mercedes “baby Benz” that they drove from Munich to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

“I wanted to see Samarkand,” Mrs. McCain said by way of explanation.

She kept the car in Europe until 2006, when she shipped it home to Washington. Then she drove solo across the country to deliver the car to a great-nephew in San Francisco. Along the way, she picked up a speeding ticket for driving 112 miles an hour in northern Arizona.

“She was a willful, rebellious girl,” John McCain wrote in his 1999 memoir, “Faith of My Fathers.”

Roberta McCain's spirit and force of will might very well explain how she managed to outlive her twin sister (who herself lived until 99) and two of her three children. We should all be so fortunate. R.I.P.