Family Life

10.15.12 | Sarah Harnisch

Funeral services will be Tuesday for Pennsylvania's longest serving senator. Arlen Spector will be laid to rest in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. He passed away from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma a little before noon Sunday at his home. He had just announced at the end of August that the cancer had returned for a third time. The 82 year old was a driven, contentious figure who often placed himself at the center of national controversies for half century, from the Kennedy assassination investigation in the 1960's to the passage of the economic stimulus in 2009. Spector was Pennsylvania's longest serving senator, with 30 years logged in Washington. He served in 5 presidencies, from Reagan to Obama. He also survived a half-dozen bouts with life-threatening illnesses; brain tumors in 1993 and 1996, heart bypass surgery in 1998, and cancer in 2005 and 2008.Spector was voted out of office in 2010 when he voted for President Obama's stimulus package.