CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Marilyn Lloyd, the first Tennessee woman elected to a full term in Congress, has died. She was 89.

Lloyd's family said in a statement that the congresswoman died Wednesday.

The Chattanooga Democrat represented Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District for 10 terms, from 1975 until she retired in 1995. She never lost a House election.

Lloyd was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1929. After her husband, Mort Lloyd, died in a 1974 plane crash, she replaced the local news anchor as the Democratic nominee for the House and won the seat.

A breast cancer survivor, Lloyd advocated for the Mammography Quality Standards Act, which became law in 1992.

Lloyd's youngest son, Morty Lloyd, called his mother a woman of great tenacity who charted a path for women in Congress.