Joan Kennedy, former wife of late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, dies at 89

Joan Bennett Kennedy, the former wife of the late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, died Wednesday morning in her sleep at her home in Boston, according to her family. She was 89 years old.

The couple had three children together, Kara, Ted Jr., and former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy.  

Her tumultuous marriage to Kennedy, which began in 1958 and ended in 1982, made her an international celebrity. Her life post-divorce as a music scholar and performer and advocate on issues of addiction and mental health cemented her status as an important figure in American life.

She was open and eloquent about her battles with alcoholism and depression in an era when celebrity confessionals were rare, and inspired the impactful post-politics career of her son Patrick, one of the nation’s premiere crusaders for mental health services.

“Besides being a loving mother, talented musician, and instrumental partner to my father as he launched his successful political career, Mom was a powerful example to millions of people with mental health conditions,” said Patrick in a statement Wednesday. “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.”

The Kennedy family legacy

And for those to whom the story of the Kennedy family, for better or worse, remains an indelible part of American and Bostonian history, it is yet another reminder of what the Kennedy legacy was and how it has evolved over time.

The defeat of her late brother-in-law’s grandson Joe Kennedy III in his 2020 primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey was the first time a Kennedy had ever lost an election in Massachusetts. Many factors played into that outcome, including voters’ judgment that Markey deserved re-election. But it was also a statement that many voters either no longer remembered the golden era of the Kennedy brothers’ rise to power and/or no longer valued the centrist progressivism espoused by young Joe. As Markey put it in a campaign video: “We asked what we could do for our country. We went out, we did it. With all due respect, it’s time to start asking what your country can do for you.”

And more recently, the bitter opposition of Joe, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and other family members to the anti-vaccine advocacy and Trump embrace of Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demonstrated the impermanence of the family’s principles.

Joan Kennedy was widely admired for her personal courage and professional accomplishments. Her passing is the latest reminder of the Kennedy family’s trajectory over the past 75 years or so, its ups and downs so closely tied to those of our nation’s politics and culture.

And it’s a reminder, too, of the wisdom of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats’s 106-year-old observation in “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”