Later Years
In his final years, Meany took up amateur photography and painting as hobbies.
Meany's wife of 59 years, Eugenia, died in March 1979, and he became ""despondent". He injured his knee in a golfing mishap a few months before his death, and was confined to a wheelchair. In November, 1979, he resigned from the AFL-CIO after a 57 year career in organized labor. He was succeeded by Lane Kirkland, who served as AFL-CIO president for 16 years.
Meany died at George Washington University Hospital on January 10, 1980. The AFL-CIO had 14 million members at time of death. President Jimmy Carter called him "an American institution" and "a patriot".
Read more about this topic: George Meany
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another. This painting here. I bought it 10 years ago for 60 thousand dollars. I could sell it today for 600. The illusion has become real and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it.”
—Oliver Stone (b. 1946)
“Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago with men and women long since dead.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)