Ralph Hall, Oldest Person to Serve in the House, Dies at 95

Ralph Hall, a Texas Republican who was the oldest member in the history of the House of Representatives, died on Thursday at his home in Rockwall, Tex. He was 95.

His death was announced by Ed Valentine, his longtime strategist.

Mr. Hall was 91 when he left the House after 34 years. He was defeated in a Republican primary runoff in 2014 by John Ratcliffe, a former United States attorney less than half his age.

An avid jogger who began his days with two-mile runs, Mr. Hall celebrated Memorial Day 2012, when he was 89, by skydiving. That Christmas he became the oldest member of the House, breaking the record set by Charles Manly Stedman of North Carolina, who died in office in 1930 at the age of 89 years, seven months and 25 days.

Only three United States senators were older than Mr. Hall while still serving. The South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond was 100 when he retired in 2003; the Rhode Island Democrat Theodore Francis Green was 93 when he left the Senate in 1961; and the West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd died in office at 92 in 2010.

Mr. Hall’s House career ended a decade after he decided, with Texas moving father to the right, to become a Republican. After serving 12 terms as a Democrat, he announced in January 2004 that he had made the switch, backed by President George W. Bush.

Mr. Hall, who flew Hellcat fighters during World War II, was known in Congress for promoting NASA and energy production. Hailing from a small town east of Dallas, he was fond of saying that he often voted with his party but always voted with his district.

Mr. Hall preferred to greet voters personally rather than organize formal campaign stops. That was enough for him to retain his House seat in 2012, when he defeated the telecommunications executive Steve Clark in a primary.

But he lost two years later when Mr. Ratcliffe painted him as a do-little Washington insider, noting disapprovingly that he had represented the district so long that he had an airport, lake and highway named after him. Mr. Ratcliffe went on to run unopposed in the general election and has since been re-elected twice.

Ralph Moody Hall was born on May 3, 1923, in Fate, Tex. He attended Texas Christian University and the University of Texas before earning a law degree at Southern Methodist University in 1951.

He once recalled that when he worked in a pharmacy in his hometown as a boy, his customers included the notorious bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who bought “two cartons of Old Golds, two Coca-Colas and all the newspapers we had,” he said.

Mr. Hall helped run bulldozers during the construction of a pipeline before joining the Navy at age 19. He married Mary Ellen Murphy in 1944 while serving in Pensacola, Fla. The couple had three sons, Hampton, Brett and Blakeley, who survive him. His wife died in 2008.

After World War II, Mr. Hall returned to practice law in Rockwall County, where he served as a judge from 1950 to 1962. He was elected to the Texas Senate the next year. He ran unsuccessfully in the 1972 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.

After being elected to the House in 1980, he came to Washington just as Ronald Reagan’s presidency began. Mr. Hall was among the conservative Democrats who sided with Reagan on key budget issues.

After becoming a Republican, Mr. Hall got strong backing from President Bush, a former Texas governor, in a three-way primary in 2004. He won 77 percent of the vote.

In 2009, he opposed the federal bailout of the financial industry and the economic stimulus package. He was also a harsh critic of federal health care reform when it was debated and ultimately approved by Congress in 2010.

After his 2014 primary loss, Mr. Hall injured his hip in a car crash, and his recovery kept him away from Washington for much of the remainder of his term.

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