Word: lifes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Joan Kennedy is a woman whose warmth and charm would have shone in almost any field of life. She has taught in public school and performed a Mozart piano concerto and read Peter and the Wolf with the Boston Symphony. Says one Bostonian who knows her well: "There isn't anyone wanner or dearer, when she's feeling good." But public life has not been kind to Joan Kennedy. Its wounds can be seen in the puffy eyes, the exaggerated makeup, the tales of alcoholism. Today she is a sadly vulnerable soul and an unknown factor...
...life did not begin that way. Joan Bennett was the debutante daughter of an advertising executive from Bronxville, N.Y. Educated at Catholic schools, she was 22 when she wed Edward Moore Kennedy. From her wedding day, "Joansie," as Ted called her, found herself buffeted by the demands on a Kennedy wife. The hardest thing, she said shortly after her marriage, "is learning to keep up with the clan." Only years later could she admit: "I tried to be like the Kennedys, bouncy and running all over. But I could never be that." Even her repeated miscarriages seemed a special failure...
...suited to the fierce brand of politics that formed the core of Kennedy life. Joan recalled herself arriving in Washington, at 26 the young wife of the youngest Senator, "totally ignorant of current events." But to please Teddy, the self-professed homebody would valiantly hit the campaign trail...
...struggling alone to recover. Early in 1978 she moved to a spacious apartment in Boston's Back Bay, devoid of political memorabilia but graced by a Steinway baby grand. It is, she told her children, "Mommy's apartment, not Daddy's." She strained to make a life of her own; studying for a master's degree in education at Lesley College, fund raising for the arts, even dating a few "safe...
Although Joan has sanctioned Ted's presidential campaign and promised vaguely to politick for him, she has told her husband flatly she wants to finish her master's first, and she has refused to commit herself to life in the White House. And though their separation is supposed to be temporary, she sometimes seems unnerved by their infrequent reunions. One woman friend recalls a scene a few months ago when the Senator's car pulled up in front of Joan's apartment as she stood near by. "Oh, Christ," said Joan, "here he comes...