Margaret Crist Wood, a sister of former Gov. Charlie Crist, died of cancer Tuesday at Bayfront Health System, her family told the Tampa Bay Times.
Wood, 60, had been treated for a malignant brain tumor and the cancer reappeared in recent months, the Times said in an obituary.
The eldest of four children by Dr. Charles J. Crist and his wife Nancy, Wood grew up in a close family whose members still reside in St. Petersburg within a few miles of each other. She graduated from St. Petersburg High School in 1972, then LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga.
She married Emory Wood in 1975, the year before she graduated, and later managed his law office.
Wood taught science at Bay Point Middle School from 1976 to 1982. When her younger brother Charlie needed help preparing for his 2010 U.S. Senate campaign, she accepted the challenge of managing it.
Crist, who had left the Republican party to run as an independent, lost in the general election to Marco Rubio.
Friends remember Wood as soft-spoken and kind, the Times said. She lived an active lifestyle that included working out and playing a lot of tennis.
Her brain tumor was diagnosed in 2013. She had surgery, but the cancer later reappeared in her lower back.