Landra Reid, wife of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing treatment for the disease, the Nevada Democrat?s office announced Friday.
Landra Reid was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. Her treatment includes chemotherapy at an undisclosed Washington, D.C., area facility.
Continue Reading?Sen. and Mrs. Reid appreciate the thoughts and concerns expressed during this time. They ask that they be afforded the respect and privacy that any family would want,? Reid?s office said in a statement.
Sources close to Reid said his wife?s illness would not have any impact on Reid?s ability to carry out his duties as majority leader.
Harry and Landra Reid have been married since they eloped in 1959. She is his closest confidant and ultimate adviser, and Reid makes no major decisions without her input. She is the one soft spot in the sometimes crusty public persona.
?She was wearing short shorts, I remember that. And she was washing the family car,? Reid recalls in his book, ?The Good Fight,? of the day he met his future wife, then Landra Gould. Reid was just a junior in high school and she was a sophomore. ?And I thought, wow, that?s a pretty nice car washer. ?
Her parents were Orthodox Jews, her father a pharmacist and she lived in Henderson, Nev., a suburb of Las Vegas. And Reid ? who grew up in humble means in a town whose main industry was prostitution ? said Landra?s house was ?like the Taj Mahal.?
On their first date, Reid borrowed a friend?s car to take her to a movie, but the car didn?t have a starter, so the two pushed the car instead. Reid said they both laughed it off.
?There are moments that turn a life, and that stay with you until the last breath,? Reid recalled. ?That was one of those moments for me.?
But religion separated the two, and Reid ? both Reids later converted to Mormonism ? was told by her father that the two could not be married, prompting a fistfight with his future father-in-law in the front yard of their house.
?It wasn?t a very fair fight ? he was smaller than I was,? he said.
The couple eloped, got married and spent the night at a motel in Mesquite, Nev.
Reid details how his wife has been with him through critical moments of his political career, including when he received numerous death threats when serving on the Nevada Gaming Commission in the late 1970s to election night in 2004, when he was awake late at night in the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas where he mulled the decision over whether to run for Democratic leader in the immediate aftermath of Tom Daschle?s defeat in South Dakota.
?Landra was still up,? Reid wrote of his election-night deliberations. ?We?ve been together since high school, so of course no important decision would happen without her. In times of triumph and trouble, Landra is without fail the first person I turn to.?
The Reids have five children ? including four sons ? and 16 grandchildren.
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