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BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Joan B. Kennedy, the former wife of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy who endured a troubled marriage marked by family tragedies, her husband\u2019s infidelities and her own decades-long struggles with alcoholism and mental health, died on Wednesday. She was 89.<\/p>\n
The former Joan Bennett, one of the\u00a0last remaining members of a family generation\u00a0that included President John F. Kennedy, was a model and classically-trained pianist when she married Ted Kennedy in 1958.<\/p>\n
Their lives would change unimaginably\u00a0over the next decade\u00a0and a half. Brother-in-law John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960 and assassinated three years later. Brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy served as attorney general under JFK, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964 and assassinated while seeking the presidency.<\/p>\n Her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate and became among the country\u2019s most respected legislators despite initial misgivings that he was capitalizing on his family connections. But Ted Kennedy also lived through scandals of his own making. In 1969, the car he was driving plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island<\/a>, killing his young female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.<\/p>\n Kennedy, who swam to safety and waited hours before alerting police, later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. Chappaquiddick shadowed him for the rest of his life, weighing against his own chances for the presidency.<\/p>\n \t\t\t