 Former Calhoun native and a former West Virginia First Lady has died. (Hur Herald Photo)
Hovah Hall Underwood, the wife of former Governor Cecil Underwood, fell ill Thursday night while preparing to go out to dinner with her husband and friends.
She died a short time later, early Friday morning, in Charleston Area Medical Center.
Family members indicated she had a stroke.
Mrs. Underwood was known as a kind and gracious woman. During her husband's last term in office she was a busy First Lady, working on early childhood development, women's health issues and the arts.
Mrs. Underwood served as First Lady on two separate occasions.
Former governor and Mrs. Underwood recently came to Calhoun to attend a Republican dinner. She had been a frequent returnee over the years.
Underwood came to Grantsville in the 1940s to court young Hovah Hall, and they later married.
Cecil Underwood, was the state's youngest governor at 34 when he was elected in 1956 and its oldest when he was elected on his 74th birthday in 1996.
Mrs. Underwood was not active during her husband's first term and started no programs of her own because her children were young and kept her busy. The youngest two of their three children -- Sharon and Craig -- were born while Underwood was governor. The eldest, Cecilia, was four years old when he took office.
She was at times a member of the board of directors of Marshall University's Artist Series, Cammack Children's Center in Huntington, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Tri-State Area, a region that includes counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
Between her stays there, Mrs. Underwood participated in the upkeep of the Governor's Mansion through the Mansion Preservation Fund.
| 
