One last visit: President Biden pays respects to former Pa. first lady Ellen Casey

When President Joe Biden came to Scranton in 2012 as part of the presidential reelection campaign, he made sure to stop by to see Mrs. Casey.

On Election Day 2020, as the world waited to see who would become president, he signed the wall of his childhood home “from this house to the White House by the grace of God,” and then popped in to visit the former first lady of Pennsylvania, whom he knew from his early days growing up in the same Scranton neighborhood.

Ellen Casey, who died last week at 91, was remembered by friends and family — and the president — as an education advocate, an ambassador for the state, and the matriarch of her beloved Scranton community.

Her son, Sen. Bob Casey, called her “the center of our family,” in a statement released last week.

Biden flew into Scranton on Thursday afternoon to visit Ellen Casey one final time in a private viewing ahead of a public viewing at St. Peter’s Cathedral. He told reporters after exiting the plane that Casey loved with ”fearlessness and tenderness,” and called her a friend who had played a very important role in his life.

”She’s an incredible woman and she’s raised an enormously successful, decent family,” Biden said over the idling roar of Air Force One behind him after landing in Scranton. “All the values I learned, I learned here in Scranton. She’s an embodiment of them.”

He told reporters he won’t be attending the funeral Friday to avoid security headaches he might cause and due to scheduled meetings at Camp David.

“Everyone would have to be wanded if I went in,” he said. “I’d mess everything up.”

Ellen Casey served as first lady while her husband, Democrat Robert Casey, was governor from 1987 to 1995. He died in 2000. The couple were married for 50 years and had eight children.

She was a liberal arts graduate of what is now Marywood University in Scranton, and credited with bringing literacy issues and breast cancer awareness to the forefront in the state.

Biden grew up a few blocks away from the Caseys, two Irish Catholic households in the city’s Green Ridge section. He has said one of his favorite parts of returning to Scranton was getting to see her.

“To spend just a few minutes with Ellen was to get a lifetime’s education in Scranton values,” Biden wrote in a lengthy statement released after her death. “Honesty. Decency. Integrity. Character. They were non-negotiable. It was who you were. Kindness was not a sign of weakness — it was a sign of strength.”

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Biden has made his upbringing in Scranton the heart of his political narrative. He pays homage to the Rust Belt city in almost every speech he delivers, crediting the Northeast city for teaching him blue-collar values and the importance of kindness. Although he’s faced some scrutiny from the GOP over how long-lasting roots can be to a place he left when he was 10, Biden has remained connected to people there, including Casey.

“She was an easy person to visit with because she just loved talking about family,” Virginia McGregor, a longtime friend of Casey’s, told The Inquirer. “I’m sure she talked about Joe’s mother, Jean, even after she passed,and what memories she had.”

After leaving the cathedral, Biden’s motorcade drove by his old house on North Washington Avenue and a favorite sandwich shop, Hank’s Hoagies.

McGregor, a Democratic fundraiser and Biden supporter and friend, commended him for making the trip but said she would have been more surprised if he hadn’t come.

“He knows how important this is. This is such an important time in someone’s life — when they lose their mother — especially when it’s Ellen Casey.”