Former West Virginia Gov. and U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller has died at the age of 89.

Rockefeller died at his home in Washington on Nov. 5, Mary Stewart, vice president for external affairs at WETA, the public broadcasting station where Rockefeller’s wife, Sharon, is president and CEO, told The Associated Press.

Rockefeller was born in New York City and was the great-grandson of Standard Oil Co. founder John Rockefeller, who died a month before Jay Rockefeller’s birth. His father, John D. Rockefeller III, was a philanthropist, while his Uncles Winthrop and Nelson Rockefeller were Republican governors of Arkansas and New York, respectively. Another uncle, David Rockefeller, was in charge of Chase Manhattan Bank.

A few years after graduating Harvard University, at age 27, Jay Rockefeller moved to the West Virginia mining town of Emmons to partake in the Volunteers in Service to America program. He said it made an impression on him.

“It explains every policy I pursued and every vote I have cast. It was where my beliefs were bolted down, and where my passions met my principles,” he said in his farewell speech on the Senate floor on Dec. 4, 2014.

What was supposed to be a brief stay turned into a career of service in the Mountain State.

He was elected to the state House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1966 despite his family being Republican. West Virginia then was a traditionally Democratic state. He served in the chamber for two years and was elected secretary of state. The only loss of his political career was in 1972, when he lost the gubernatorial race to Republican Arch A. Moore Jr.

Rockefeller ran against Moore four years later and became governor between 1977 and 1985. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and served there from 1985 to his retirement in 2015, completing five terms. He was succeeded by Moore’s daughter Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.).

Tributes poured in following Rockefeller’s death.

“Over the years, we developed a wonderful friendship that transcended politics, and I will always be grateful for that,” Capito said in a statement.

“From his early work in some of our state’s most disadvantaged communities to his efforts to strengthen healthcare, protect coal miners and their families, and support our veterans, Senator Rockefeller demonstrated a deep commitment to the people of West Virginia,” Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a statement.

“When Jay Rockefeller came to West Virginia back in the early 1960s, we were so excited and starstruck because we knew his incredible family legacy,” former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who served alongside Rockefeller, said in a post on X. “We knew he could have gone anywhere in the world, but he chose to come to West Virginia, and most importantly, he chose to call West Virginia home. He adopted us and we adopted him as a true West Virginian.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.