Spiro Agnew's Widow Dies at 91

The widow of former Vice President Spiro Agnew has died. Judy Agnew was 91.

Agnew's daughter Susan Sagle said Friday her mother died on June 20 in Rancho Mirage, Calif., with her four children present.

Judy Agnew holds the bible as her husband is sworn in to his second term as vice president by Chief Justice Warren Burger in Jan. 1973. (AP Photo)

Sagle says her mother's health had been deteriorating since 2005 and she developed pneumonia.

The wife of the man who became known as President Richard Nixon's strident point man stayed out of politics, focusing on family life.

"I think she had a very quiet and enjoyable life with friends and family and stayed very much involved with her family, which was the most important part of her life," Sagle said in a telephone interview Friday.

Former U.S. Rep. Helen Bentley, a Maryland Republican and longtime friend, described her as a pleasant woman.

"She was always doing whatever she could for her children and her husband, Spiro, and when the grandchildren began coming she was very effervescent about them," Bentley said.

Spiro Agnew was elected governor of Maryland in 1966. Nixon chose him to be his running mate in 1968. In October 1973, Agnew pleaded no contest to a single count of income-tax evasion and resigned from the vice presidency. He died in 1996.