PHOENIX — The half-sister of Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has died of Alzheimer's disease, the family announced.
Dixie Lea Burd, 74, died Tuesday in Phoenix. She had been in a nursing home for the past two years, and Cindy McCain arranged for her to go into hospice care, son Bob Burd said.
Cindy McCain and Dixie Burd had the same mother. Marguerite "Smitty" Johnson married Cindy McCain's father, the late James Hensley, in 1945.
"My family is deeply saddened by the death of my half- sister, Dixie Burd. She had been very ill for quite some time, and it was difficult for loved ones to see her suffer," Cindy McCain said in a statement released by the McCain campaign. "I am hopeful that my family's privacy will be respected at this time."
Burd was a homemaker who later helped her family run six Hallmark stores in metropolitan Phoenix. Her son said Cindy McCain was protective of her, and they were very close.
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"She lost her mother, so she was very aware of what hospice can do," Bob Burd said of Cindy McCain on Friday. "And one of the things she tried to avoid was having my mom under scrutiny of the press when the story broke about Kathy. She did everything she could to keep the press off my mom as she was going into hospice."
Burd was referring to another half-sister, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, who went public earlier this year with complaints that Cindy McCain wasn't treating her like family and that she was supporting rival Barack Obama.
Hensley was father to both Cindy McCain and Portalski. He founded Hensley & Co., a Phoenix-area Anheuser-Busch distributor, and Cindy McCain inherited his stake in the company.
