CHICAGO - Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White's sister has died - nearly three decades after her life-saving kidney transplant helped turn White into a champion of organ donation.
White's office says Doris Ivy died of natural causes on Friday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She was 85.
White's interest in organ and tissue donation is a family story that begins in the early 1980s when doctors asked his family to harvest the organs of his brother, who was on life support after suffering a brain aneurism. White's family knew little about organ donation and declined the request.
Ivy's 1991 kidney transplant helped spark White and ivy's devotion to organ donation and White has dramatically expanded the state's organ and tissue donation program as secretary of state.
