Byrd served his home state of West Virginia in the Senate for more than a third of its 144-year existence. He died early Monday morning.
The longest-serving senator in the nation’s history, Byrd’s career seemed like a natural fit from an early age. Raised by impoverished coal-mining relatives in depression-era Appalachia after his mother died in the 1918 influenza pandemic, Byrd showed an early gift for two things: self-education and rhetorical charm. He taught himself butchery as a young adult to get ahead in the grocery business, and later trained himself to become a successful impromptu preacher. (See photos of Byrd’s storied career)
The latter skill more than the former paved the way for his election first to the state house as a Democrat in 1946, then to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1952 and finally to the Senate in 1958. Unable to afford college early in life, he took night courses in the late ’40s and earned his law degree over 10 years of part-time study after he arrived in Washington, D.C…Read TIME’s appreciation of the late senator from West Virginia.