Joan never remarried after divorcing Ted in 1983 and maintained a relatively low profile in recent years
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Joan Kennedy with Sen. Edward Kennedy.Credit : Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Joan Bennett Kennedy, the first wife of Sen. Ted Kennedy, died early in the morning on Oct. 8, PEOPLE confirms. She was 89 years old.
GoLocalProv published an obituary announcing the news, revealing that she died peacefully in her sleep at her Boston home.
Joan, a talented classical pianist with a master’s degree in education, divorced Ted in 1983, but continued to be known as the long-suffering wife of the youngest Kennedy son to whom she was married for 22 years.
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Joan was born in New York City on Sept. 2, 1936, and raised in the suburbs by a Roman Catholic family.
She met Ted in 1957, when his older sister Jean Kennedy introduced them. Both Jean and Joan were students at Manhattanville College.
Within the year, the two became engaged. Although both Joan and Ted expressed reservations about getting married, Ted’s father, the powerful patriarch Joe Kennedy, insisted they go through with it.
They wed on Nov. 29, 1958, in Bronxville, N.Y., the tiny suburb where Joan grew up. Joan was 22 years old.
Together, they had three children, Kara, Ted Jr. and Patrick.
Kara, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2002, died from a heart attack in 2011. Ted Jr., an attorney and former member of the Connecticut state Senate, developed bone cancer at age 12 and had part of his right leg removed. Patrick served as a Rhode Island congressman for 16 years and is a mental health advocate.
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The marriage between Joan and Ted Kennedy was one of many struggles.
In July 1969, Ted’s car went off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped in the car. Joan attended Kopechne’s funeral alongside Ted. Three days later, she was again at his side when he pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.
She suffered much humiliation in the years that followed, as stories of Ted’s extramarital affairs and his heavy drinking made headlines
Quiet and reserved, Joan didn’t always fit in with the rambunctious style of the Kennedy family and once told PEOPLE how Jackie Kennedy had advised her to seek solace in her piano, the way she did with painting.
She later admitted that she began drinking heavily to get through the numerous misfortunes and challenges in her life. “At times I drank to feel less inhibited, to relax at parties,” she told PEOPLE in 1978. “Other times I drank to block out unhappiness, to drown my sorrows.”
Joan embraced the twelve step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and was candid about her struggles. “Staying sober is difficult,” Joan told PEOPLE in 1979 while sipping a diet ginger ale. “But I’m sober today, and that’s all that matters. I’m working on my recovery a day at a time.”
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She and Ted separated in 1978 but they did not divorce until after his failed 1980 presidential campaign. They announced plans to divorce in 1981 and the decision was finalized in 1983. She never remarried.
In later years, her struggle to stay sober often made headlines and included highly publicized drunk driving incidents. After being appointed a guardian when her alcoholism came to a head in the early 2000s, Joan lived a quiet life in Boston and stayed relatively out of the public eye.
