Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, died Tuesday at his Massachusetts home of brain cancer. He was 77.
Kennedy’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away on August 11, and while he attended a private mass held in remembrance of his sister, the senator, suffering from a brain tumor, was not able to attend her funeral service.
It was on May 20, 2008 that Kennedy’s doctors reported that the statesman had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. This was followed by a three-hour surgery in June of that year at the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.
Kennedy didn’t let his illness get him down. He returned to the Senate in July to help break a Republican filibuster of a Medicare bill and, in August 2008, he was the featured speaker on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
In 2009, Kennedy, who will be releasing his memoirs this fall, was bestowed an honorary knighthood by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In March, he received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award as part of his 77th birthday celebration at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Born on February 22, 1932, he was the fourth son and ninth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. With three older brothers — Joseph, who was killed during World War II; John, who was assassinated during his presidency in 1963; and Robert, who was assassinated in 1968 while running for the presidency — Ted Kennedy was not originally expected to fulfill his family’s political ambitions, but the death of his older brothers changed that and he inherited the mantle of “presidential heir apparent.”
But Kennedy never ran for the top office, rather serving as the senator for the state of Massachusetts since winning the post in November 1962.
Kennedy was a graduate of Harvard in 1956, following which he enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School. He obtained his law degree in 1959 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar the same year. He began his political career by managing his brother John’s Senate campaign while in law school; and when JFK was elected president, Kennedy ran — and won — the Senate seat on his own at age 30 during the special election.
In 1969, it seemed that his political aspirations might come to an end. Kennedy drove his car off of a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. He escaped, but Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in the car, drowned. Kennedy’s failure to not immediately report the accident — he waited close to nine hours — caused a media frenzy. Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail. At that time, he asked the people of Massachusetts to advise him as to whether or not he should continue to represent them in the Senate. The answer was yes, he should.
Kennedy is survived by his second wife Victoria Ann Reggie Kennedy who he married in 1992, their children Curran and Caroline Raclin, as well as first wife Virginia Joan Bennett and their three children: Kara Anne, Edward Moore, Jr. and Patrick Joseph.
