BOSTON (AP) — Joan B. Kennedy, the former wife of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 89. Her life was marked by a marriage filled with challenges, including family tragedies, her husband’s infidelities, and her prolonged battle with alcoholism and mental health issues.
Born Joan Bennett, she was one of the last living members of the generation that included President John F. Kennedy. When she married Ted Kennedy in 1958, she was a model and a classically-trained pianist.
Over the following decade and a half, their lives transformed dramatically. Her brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy, became president in 1960 but was assassinated three years later. Robert F. Kennedy, another brother-in-law, served as attorney general under JFK, became a U.S. Senator in 1964, and was also assassinated while running for president.
Her husband, Ted Kennedy, secured a seat in the U.S. Senate and emerged as a prominent legislator despite initial skepticism about his reliance on family ties. However, Ted encountered his own scandals. In 1969, the car he was driving fell off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, resulting in the death of his young passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.
After swimming to safety, Ted delayed informing the police for several hours and later admitted guilt to leaving the accident scene. The Chappaquiddick incident lingered as a shadow over his career, affecting his chances for a presidential run.
Together, Joan and Ted Kennedy had three children, but she also endured miscarriages, including one shortly after the Chappaquiddick incident. Although she supported Ted through the controversy, their growing apart was evident by the time of his failed bid against President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries. Separated by then, they eventually divorced. During the campaign, one bumper sticker humorously urged, “Vote for Jimmy Carter, Free Joan Kennedy.”
Her death comes about a year after Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, died at the age of 96, having raised their 11 children after he was assassinated, and remaining dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter.
Virginia Joan Bennett was born into a prominent Bronxville, N.Y., family and as a teen she worked as a model in TV ads. She was a classmate of Jean Kennedy, the future senator’s sister, at Manhattanville College, where her exceptional beauty caught Ted Kennedy’s eye when he visited the campus for a building dedication in 1957.
They married a year later, but Joan Kennedy struggled from the start to fit in to the high-powered family.
“Joan was shy and a really reserved person, and the Kennedys aren’t,” Adam Clymer, author of “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography” said in an 2005 interview with the AP.
Her love of piano would be a trademark for much of her life. She was known for opening her husband’s campaign rallies with a piano serenade and, after they divorced, touring with orchestras around the world. Her family said she would combine her masterful playing with a message about the transformational potential of the arts and the need for equitable arts education.
In a 1992 Associated Press interview, she recalled playing piano for brother-in-law Bobby when he ran for president in 1968. “He took me with him and encouraged me,” she said. “He had a theme, ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ the Woody Guthrie song. I’d play that on the piano and everybody would come in, feeling really great about everything.”
“It seems like a long time ago, but it’s part of my memories,” she said, while promoting a book she wrote, which was a guide to appreciating classical music.
She also talked in the interview about how music helped her get through some difficult times, including the deaths of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, when her son Ted Jr. lost his leg to cancer and her separation and divorce from Ted Kennedy.
“I do advise listening to music when your in grief,” she said. “Music has give me a lot of courage to carry on.”
In a statement, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island praised his mother for her courage and talent.
“Besides being a loving mother, talented musician, and instrumental partner to my father as he launched his successful political career, Mom was a power of example to millions of people with mental health conditions,” his statement said. “She will be missed not just by the entire Kennedy Family, but by the arts community in the City of Boston and the many people whose lives that she touched.”
She also became one of the first women to publicly acknowledge her struggles with alcoholism and depression.
“I will always admire my mother for the way that she faced up to her challenges with grace, courage, humility, and honesty,” Ted Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “She taught me how to be more truthful with myself and how careful listening is a more powerful communication skill than public speaking.”
After Chappaquiddick, her drinking worsened. A series of drunken driving arrests led to stays in alcohol treatment programs. Then in 2005, a passerby found her passed out on a Boston sidewalk in the rain, and she was hospitalized with a concussion and broken shoulder. Her children intervened, with Ted Jr. obtaining a court-ordered guardianship for his mother’s care.
Maria Shriver praised her cousins for doing “a great job caring for her, respecting her privacy, and loving her.”
“She courageously shared what it was like to lose a child, get divorced from a famous man, and carry on. Her life was challenging, but she persevered,” the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver posted in a eulogy for her aunt. “As a young girl, I marveled at her grace, her beauty, her elegance. As a woman, I respected her grit, her resilience, her perseverance.”
Joan Kennedy is survived by her two sons, nine grandchildren, a great-grandchild and nearly 30 nieces and nephews. Her daughter, Kara, died in 2011.
