By Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger
Half an hour after three networks called Virginia in his column Tuesday night, Barack Obama placed a telephone call at about 7:30 p.m. to Charlottesville resident Betty Van Yahres to express his condolences over the death Friday of her husband, former Del. Mitchell Van Yahres.
“I almost fell over,” Van Yahres said an hour after she took Obama’s call. “He made my day. I’ve been sad.”
Obama had read that the obituary for the former Charlottesville mayor and 24-year delegate had included a sentence asking friends “to make a healthy and significant contribution to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.”
Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, called Obama’s condolence call to Van Yahres “a classy thing to do.”
Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, said of Obama’s call, “That’s very touching.”
Former Del. Van Yahres, who died Friday after complications from surgery for lung cancer, told his son, Mike, about his support of Obama in the weeks before his death.
“It fits the guy,” Mike said of his father’s “late” and strong endorsement of Obama in his obituary. “He would be smiling about it - probably laughing.”
“What we were trying to do was come up with ideas that were noble, but a little uplifting and light-hearted,” he said of the family’s effort to pay tribute to Van Yahres in the obituary.
A large crowd is expected at the public Mass and celebration of his life at 2 p.m. Friday at Church of the Incarnation.
