Kay Granger, who served in the US House for almost three decades as the first elected Republican woman from Texas, died on Sunday, her family said. She was 83.

The cause of death, according to her son JD Granger, was Alzheimer’s disease.

It was revealed in 2024 after questions about a prolonged absence from Washington DC that Granger was battling “dementia issues” and was living in a care home – a development her office did not disclose for months, the New York Times reported.

Mike Johnson, the Republican US House speaker, posted a tribute to the veteran lawmaker on X on Sunday, recalling “her extraordinary life of service and lasting legacy” and describing her as a dear friend.

“Kay Granger devoted her life to serving her Fort Worth, Texas, community,” Johnson wrote.

“Throughout her career, she broke barriers for women in public service,” Johnson said, before highlighting how she “was the first woman to serve as mayor of Fort Worth, the first Republican woman elected to represent Texas in the House of Representatives, and the first Republican woman to chair the House Appropriations Committee”.

Born in January 1943, Norvell Kay Granger was a high school teacher and businesswoman before entering politics. She was mayor of Fort Worth from 1991 to 1995 and was elected to the House in Texas’s 12th congressional district the following year.

She was the ranking member of the powerful House appropriations committee until her party won back control of the chamber in 2022 – then served as its chair until April 2024. In all, she won 14 successive elections in her district, winning 92% of the votes in 2002.

She did not seek re-election in 2024 and, according to her office, experienced worsening “health challenges” during and after her final months in Congress.

After casting her final vote in July 2024, Granger largely disappeared from the public eye. A reporter with the Dallas Express began to dig into where Granger was after finding calls to her offices redirected to voicemail – and found few signs of a physical presence at her constituency office.

The reporter, Carlos Turcios, eventually received a tip from a local resident that Granger had moved into an assisted living center specializing in memory care. The revelation forced her office to release a statement in December 2024 that said she had been navigating “unforeseen health challenges that have progressed since September and made travel to DC difficult”.

In an interview with the Hill in 2008, Granger said her separation and eventual divorce from her husband reshaped her pathway and helped strengthen her into an advocate for women.

“I was a high school teacher with three children, a two-year-old and six-month-old twins, and my husband left,” she said. “It’s the reason I talk so much to working mothers.

“You just fight your way through the day.”

As Fort Worth mayor, she introduced citizen patrol initiatives that halved a rampant crime rate. She also secured partnerships with the private sector that drew major businesses to the city. Her resuscitation of Fort Worth’s flagging economic fortunes drew national attention.

In 1996, she was recruited by both parties to run for the House under their banner, and she won as a Republican.

Upon entering Congress, she was named to an advisory board to the then House speaker, Newt Gingrich. She also received seats on three committees: budget, oversight, and transportation and infrastructure. She resigned from those assignments when she accepted a seat on the appropriations committee.

As chair, she sought to enact steeper non-defense spending cuts than the top-line numbers agreed to between another former Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and then-president Joe Biden as part of a plan to avoid a government default.

Granger was originally a vocal critic of Donald Trump, demanding he step down as a Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election that vaulted him to his first presidency. She called his comments against women “disgusting”.

By 2020, she had a change of heart, endorsing Trump for re-election and earning his endorsement in return

The Associated Press contributed to this report