Washington, Nov 2 (IANS): Dorothy Howell Rodham, mother of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, passed away Tuesday at the age of 92 following illness, her family said.

Hillary Clinton cancelled a planned trip to London and Istanbul to be at her mother's side at a Washington hospital, Xinhua reported.

Born in Chicago in 1919, Rodham was the daughter of a city firefighter. She and her sister had to live with their paternal grandparents in California after their parents divorced in 1927.

She got married in Chicago in 1942 with Hugh E. Rodham, who was a successful businessman.

In a statement, the Clinton family praised Rodham as a woman who "overcame abandonment and hardship as a young girl to become the remarkable woman she was - a warm, generous and strong woman; an intellectual; a woman who told a great joke and always got the joke; an extraordinary friend and, most of all, a loving wife, mother and grandmother."

Despite her daughter's fame as a former first lady and as the top diplomat of the country, Dorothy Rodham rarely talked publicly about herself, or her daughter and son-in-law, former US President Bill Clinton.

But during the 2008 presidential campaign by her daughter Hillary Clinton, who was competing then with incumbent President Barack Obama, Rodham appeared with her daughter in several primary states, especially at events on women's issues.