By JANIE HAR
SAN FRANCISCO — The late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein was toasted Thursday at a memorial service as a leader with uncommon integrity and a defender of American values — as well as a talented artist and a grandmother who gave crooked haircuts in her kitchen.
President Joe Biden, who sent recorded remarks, was among the short list of speakers who praised Feinstein at the private memorial service outside San Francisco City Hall. Vice President Kamala Harris, herself a product of San Francisco politics, and other national leaders spoke in person to send off the first female mayor of San Francisco and longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate.
“She was always tough, prepared, rigorous, compassionate. She always served the people of California and our nation for the right reasons,” Biden said. “God bless a great American hero. She was something else, and she was a dear friend.”
The service marked the end of two days of events in the city that launched Feinstein’s political career amid tragedy. Hundreds of everyday people streamed into City Hall on Wednesday to pay their respects to the woman who shattered numerous glass ceilings.
On Thursday, it was time for national leaders and Feinstein’s family to share tributes to the woman they knew. They did so with personal and warm anecdotes that reflected Feinstein’s kindness, wit, and passion for the city in which she was born and raised, California and the country.
Eileen Mariano recalled how Feinstein, her grandmother, created the AMBER Alert program and protected California’s deserts. But she was also a woman who hated losing at chess, cut hair crookedly and sang Mariano to sleep with “You Are My Sunshine.”
She taught Mariano to put in the work and to keep going no matter what.
“That, and she would also say to me, if you ever go out of town, no matter where you’re going, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to a city or the desert or a beach or the mountains, always pack a…
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