20 Facts About Doris Haddock

At age 94 at the time, Doris Haddock was the oldest congressional candidate in US history.

Doris Haddock's walk across the country followed a southern route and took more than a year to complete, starting on January 1,1999, in southern California and ending in Washington, DC, on February 29,2000.

Doris Haddock requested a name change of her middle name to "Granny D", the name by which she had long been known.

Ethel Doris Haddock Rollins was born in Laconia, New Hampshire, the daughter of Ethel and Carl Rollins.

Doris Haddock attended Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, for three years before marrying James Haddock.

Doris Haddock was later awarded an honorary degree in 2000.

Doris Haddock worked during the Great Depression and was employed for twenty years as an executive secretary in the offices of the BeeBee Shoe factory in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Doris Haddock had eight grandchildren: Heidi, Gillian, David Bradley, William, Alice, Joseph, Lawrence, and Raphael.

Doris Haddock had 16 great-grandchildren: Kyle, David, Jennie, Kendall, Peyton, Matthew, Richard, Grace, Justin, William, James, Beatrix, Tucker, Mathilda, Parker, and Clay.

Doris Haddock celebrated her 100th birthday on January 24,2010, and died six weeks later on March 9,2010, at her son's home in Dublin, New Hampshire, following a bout with respiratory illness.

Doris Haddock was a life-long member of the United Methodist Church.

In 1960, Doris Haddock began her political activism when she and her husband successfully campaigned against planned hydrogen bomb nuclear testing in Alaska that threatened an Inuit fishing village at Point Hope.

Doris Haddock worked closely with state representative Betty Hall, another New Hampshire grandmother, on campaign finance reform.

Doris Haddock entered a plea of guilty, then made a statement to the court reiterating "campaign finance reform" as the purpose of their demonstration.

Doris Haddock was awarded an honorary degree by Franklin Pierce College on October 21,2002.

Doris Haddock was the Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in New Hampshire during the 2004 election when the leading Democratic primary candidate left the race unexpectedly, because of a campaign-finance scandal.

Doris Haddock was, at 94, one of the oldest major-party candidates to ever run for the US Senate.

True to her "clean elections" ideals, Doris Haddock funded her late-entry campaign by accepting only modest private-citizen donations.

Doris Haddock captured approximately 34 percent of the vote, losing to incumbent Republican US Senator Judd Gregg, as he sought his third term.

Doris Haddock was the keynote speaker for that year's Martin Luther King Day Community Celebration in Manchester.