BLOOMINGTON – Former longtime U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton and his wife, Nancy, were still settling into their new life away from Washington when she died after being run over by her own car, friends said.

Nancy Hamilton’s car was apparently not in park when it rolled over her as she walked behind it to retrieve a pet from the other side during a trip to a Bloomington veterinarian’s office Saturday.

Hamilton, 82, died from head and chest injuries, authorities said.

Charlotte Zietlow, a former president of the Bloomington City Council, said the Hamiltons were becoming involved in the city after moving there from Washington and that she had seen them at a social event in the city last week.

“She was just wonderfully cheerful, a great wife for him, and also led her own life,” Zietlow told the Herald-Times. “ … It’s not easy to hold up a family when one person has to give up so much time to do a job. And it’s no ordinary job; it was serving the people of this country.”

Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, represented southern Indiana in Congress for more than 30 years until 1999 and later held other government roles, including vice chairman of the 9/11 commission.

He announced a couple of years ago plans to move to Bloomington full time with a role as director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University after stepping down as president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

The Hamiltons met while students at DePauw University and married during Lee Hamilton’s first year of law school at Indiana University.