Saturday, September 17, 2011

Two Daughters of Senate Legends Die

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist


The daughters of two Senate legends passed away this weekend.  Each was a very young 51-years-old.

Kara Kennedy was the eldest child of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his first wife, Joan,  She was born the year that her Uncle Jack was elected President.  She died of a heart attack while at a fitness center on Friday.  Ms. Kennedy was a survivor of lung cancer.  She and her husband, Michael Allen, were the parents of a teenage son and daughter.

Eleanor Mondale, the middle child of Walter and Joan Mondale, died of brain cancer on Saturday.  She had been battling the condition for several years.  The thrice-married  Ms. Mondale, a self-described "party girl," was a former girlfriend of rocker Warren Zevon and was reportedly one of a small group of women who caused Monica Lewinsky to have pangs of jealously - although she denied ever having more than just a friendship with Bill Clinton.

I went to a rally in Joplin, Missouri, in 1984 in support of the Presidential ticket of Mondale-Ferraro.  Although neither of the national candidates was in attendance, the former senator and vice-president was represented at the event by his daughter, Eleanor.  I remember her as being loud, vivacious, and formidable in her own right.  She shook the hand of everyone in attendance and spewed chit-chat like a seasoned politician.  Eleanor and Missouri State Senator Harriett Woods each signed a Mondale-Ferraro campaign poster for me, a political artifact of inestimable personal value.

The world is quietly slipping onward.

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