Word: kathleen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...wasn't obvious my wife would ever become a public person," David told TIME. "It took a long time." And certainly it was not assumed, even by the election-oriented Kennedys, that the girls in the family were meant for the job. But the young Kathleen, as the first grandchild of Joseph Kennedy, was nonetheless expected to serve in some way. Two days after President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Kathleen's father Robert wrote his 12-year-old daughter a note on White House stationery: "As the oldest of the next generation you have a particular responsibility...Be kind...
...uncle Ted's campaigns and stumping for local and congressional Democratic candidates. But two years after the family moved to David's home state of Maryland, in 1984, she decided to run for a congressional seat. The district was strongly Republican and the Democrats were in disarray, but Kathleen told her husband, "Someone has to run, and this is where my kids are going to grow up." She ran as a Townsend and lost. "That loss was good for her," says former U.S. Senator Joe Tydings, who has been close to the family for decades. "Kathleen is just like...
Townsend has taken her father's admonition to heart and added to it the special stoicism that comes from being the tribe's eldest. Her family nicknames include "Clean Kathleen," "the Nun" and "the Un-Kennedy." Says longtime friend Tim Hagen, a former local politician in Ohio whom she met while working for her uncle Ted's 1980 presidential campaign: "At times Kathleen is so resolute she does not accept the irreconcilable." Indeed, her staff says one of her favorite words is "unacceptable...
...weekend John Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down, Townsend was in Hyannis Port helping friends and family deal with the tragedy. "Kathleen has no time for self-pity," says someone close to the family. "She knows she and her family have been blessed in so many ways." She spent last week mostly at home with David and their four daughters...
Townsend has discovered her political talents relatively late in life, but her husband believes it is a natural development for her. Kathleen is still shaping things, but this time it's civic life. "Politics is like pottery, only with a different kind of clay...