A newspaper in Kentucky has apologised after refusing to print a line in an obituary of an 87-year-old woman that suggested frustration with Donald Trump had hastened her death.

The sentence omitted from the obituary of Frances Irene Finley Williams read: “Her passing was hastened by her continued frustration with the Trump administration.” Laurie Bolle, the director of sales for Gannett, the company that owns the Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, said the decision to cut the line was “a mistake”.

“Mrs Williams’s obituary should have published as it was presented to our obits team and as requested by the family,” said Richard A Green, the Courier-Journal’s editor.

He added: “In this political climate we now find ourselves, partisanship should have no role in deciding what gets included in an obituary that captures a loved one’s life — especially one as amazing as what Mrs Williams led. I’m certain she is missed greatly by those who loved her. We send the family our deepest condolences and apologies.”

Williams died just before Thanksgiving last year. Her daughter, Cathy Duff, said her brother had told her on Christmas Eve that the Cremation Society of Kentucky, which had been dealing with the obituary, had received an email from Gannett saying: “Per our policy, we are not able to publish the obituary as is due to the negative content within the obituary text.”

The email, seen by the Washington Post, added: “You are more than welcome to remove the negative content so we may move forward with publishing if you wish.”

The family agreed to remove the line referring to Trump but Williams’s son, Art Williams, wrote a Facebook post on 5 January that said: “I was, and still am, dumbfounded, surprised, but most of all disappointed and aghast that a once historically courageous American newspaper that exists by reason of freedom of speech would so trivially move to abate the free speech that it seems, when convenient, to hypocritically champion.”

The post prompted a backlash against the paper.

Duff said politics had been a “vital part” of her mother’s personality, which was why she had wanted to include the line in the obituary, which cost $1,684 to publish.

Her mother’s interest in politics stemmed from growing up in the Great Depression, experiencing poverty that she felt could have been prevented, she said.

Duff said Green called the family to apologise on Tuesday and informed them that the obituary would run in full.