BOSTON — BOSTON (AP) — Joan B. Kennedy, the previous spouse of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy who endured a troubled marriage marked by household tragedies, her husband’s infidelities and her personal decades-long struggles with alcoholism and psychological well being, died on Wednesday. She was 89.
The previous Joan Bennett, one of many last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy, was a mannequin and classically-trained pianist when she married Ted Kennedy in 1958.
Their lives would change unimaginably over the following decade and a half. Brother-in-law John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960 and assassinated three years later. Brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy served as lawyer common beneath JFK, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964 and assassinated whereas looking for the presidency.
Her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate and have become among the many nation’s most revered legislators regardless of preliminary misgivings that he was capitalizing on his household connections. However Ted Kennedy additionally lived via scandals of his personal making. In 1969, the automobile he was driving plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, killing his younger feminine passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.
Kennedy, who swam to security and waited hours earlier than alerting police, later pleaded responsible to leaving the scene of an accident. Chappaquiddick shadowed him for the remainder of his life, weighing towards his personal probabilities for the presidency.
Joan Kennedy had three youngsters together with her husband, but additionally had miscarriages, together with one shortly after the Chappaquiddick accident. She stood by her husband via the scandal, however their estrangement was almost unattainable to cover by the point of his unsuccessful effort to defeat President Jimmy Carter within the 1980 Democratic primaries. They’d been separated by then, and would later divorce. One bumper sticker from the marketing campaign learn “Vote for Jimmy Carter, Free Joan Kennedy.”
Virginia Joan Bennett was born right into a distinguished Bronxville, N.Y., household and as a teen she labored as a mannequin in TV advertisements. She was a classmate of Jean Kennedy, the longer term senator’s sister, at Manhattanville School, the place her distinctive magnificence caught Ted Kennedy’s eye when he visited the campus for a constructing dedication in 1957.
They married a 12 months later, however Joan Kennedy struggled from the beginning to slot in to the high-powered household.
“Joan was shy and a very reserved individual, and the Kennedys aren’t,” Adam Clymer, writer of “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography” mentioned in an 2005 interview with the AP.
Her love of piano can be a trademark for a lot of her life. She was recognized for opening her husband’s marketing campaign rallies with a piano serenade and, after they divorced, touring with orchestras world wide. Her household mentioned she would mix her masterful enjoying with a message concerning the transformational potential of the humanities and the necessity for equitable arts training.
In a 1992 Related Press interview, she recalled enjoying piano for brother-in-law Bobby when he ran for president in 1968. “He took me with him and inspired me,” she mentioned. “He had a theme, ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ the Woody Guthrie tune. I’d play that on the piano and everyone would are available in, feeling actually nice about all the pieces.”
“It looks like a very long time in the past, nevertheless it’s a part of my recollections,” she mentioned softly.
In a press release, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island praised his mom for her braveness and expertise.
“Apart from being a loving mom, proficient musician, and instrumental accomplice to my father as he launched his profitable political profession, Mother was an influence of instance to thousands and thousands of individuals with psychological well being situations,” his assertion mentioned. “She will probably be missed not simply by your entire Kennedy Household, however by the humanities group within the Metropolis of Boston and the many individuals whose lives that she touched.”
She additionally turned one of many first ladies to publicly acknowledge her struggles with alcoholism and despair.
“I’ll all the time admire my mom for the best way that she confronted as much as her challenges with grace, braveness, humility, and honesty,” Ted Kennedy Jr. mentioned in a press release. “She taught me how you can be extra truthful with myself and the way cautious listening is a extra highly effective communication talent than public talking.”
After Chappaquiddick, her ingesting worsened. A sequence of drunken driving arrests led to stays in alcohol remedy packages. Then in 2005, a passerby discovered her handed out on a Boston sidewalk within the rain, and she or he was hospitalized with a concussion and damaged shoulder. Her youngsters intervened, with Ted Jr. acquiring a court-ordered guardianship for his mom’s care.
Kennedy is survived by her two sons, 9 grandchildren and different 30 nieces. Her daughter, Kara, died in 2011.
