Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 27, 1995 TAG: 9507270043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LANSING, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
Romney, who also held leadership positions in the Mormon church, died at his home in Bloomfield Hills, a Detroit suburb.
William Milliken, who succeeded Romney as governor, said Romney ``was one of the finest public servants this state has ever known.''
Gov. John Engler ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in Romney's memory.
A son, G. Scott Romney, said his mother, Lenore, found Romney collapsed on a treadmill in the family's exercise room.
``He always left me a note or breakfast ready or something. Every day I got a rose,'' Lenore Romney said at a brief, emotional news conference outside their home.
``I would say to everyone: `Would you please try to be like my husband?' He was so wonderful. I don't know what I'll do without him.'' she said, her voice cracking.
The dean of Republican politics in Michigan, Romney ran for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination but dropped out two weeks before the New Hampshire primary.
His campaign was dogged by his comment in a September 1967 television interview that he originally had supported the Vietnam War because he was brainwashed by the military during a tour of the country. But he said other factors scotched his candidacy.
President Nixon later named Romney secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a post he held from 1969 to 1972, when he resigned to return to the private sector.
In 1994, Romney's son Mitt, a Massachusetts businessman, waged a tough but unsuccessful challenge to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's bid for re-election.
``To some, he is known as governor, a great leader, a volunteer, a statesman, a loyal American and a man of God,'' Mitt Romney said from his home in Belmont, Mass. ``To us, he is the most wonderful husband in the world, a devoted father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
by CNB