--- title: Obituary: Woman Died to Avoid Trump, Clinton Election description: A woman's obituary claims she died to avoid choosing between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in November's presidential election canonical: https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-18T17:58:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T17:38:39.182Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Obituary Says Woman Died to Avoid Choice of Clinton or Trump og:description: She "chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God" og:url: https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obituary Says Woman Died to Avoid Choice of Clinton or Trump twitter:description: She "chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Viral Obituary Jokes That Woman Died to Avoid Choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump  by [Katie Reilly](/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly May 18, 2016 5:58 PM CUT  by [Katie Reilly](/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly May 18, 2016 5:58 PM CUT The [obituary of a 68-year-old Virginia woman](http://www.richmond.com/obituaries/article%5Fc21b60bc-1153-5abd-b3c8-268cfd32eb57.html "undefined") who died Sunday has gone viral after it claimed—tongue in cheek— that she passed away to avoid the increasingly likely choice [between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton](http://time.com/4328519/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-unpredictable/ "undefined") in November’s presidential election. “Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday,” read Noland’s obituary, [published in the Richmond _Times-Dispatch_](http://www.richmond.com/obituaries/article%5Fc21b60bc-1153-5abd-b3c8-268cfd32eb57.html "undefined") on Tuesday. Her husband, Jim Noland, said the comment about Trump and Clinton was not a shot at either presidential candidate but a joke meant to carry on her sense of humor, [local station NBC12 reported](http://www.nbc12.com/story/31993636/trump-or-clinton-grandmother-chooses-neither "undefined"). He said his wife, a wound care nurse, mother and grandmother to 10 grandchildren, died after battling lung cancer. Mary Anne Noland isn’t the first to [send a final political message in an obituary](http://time.com/4189495/obituary-dont-vote-for-trump/ "undefined") this year. Jeffrey Cohen, a Pittsburgh man who died in January at the age of 70, requested in [his obituary](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=jeffrey-h-cohen&pid=177366473& "undefined") that loved ones not vote for Trump. “Jeffrey would ask that in lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Donald Trump,” it read. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/"},"headline":"Viral Obituary Jokes That Woman Died to Avoid Choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump","datePublished":"2016-05-18T17:58:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T17:38:39.182Z","description":"She \"chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God\"","url":"https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/","keywords":["2016 Election topic","Virginia"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4340342/virginia-obituary-avoid-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice/","name":"Viral Obituary Jokes That Woman Died to Avoid Choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump"}}]}] ```