Kennedy-Townsend

The Kennedys, like many families, have always had their own share of tragedies. Just like when Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, “a pague upon your houses” (Capulets and the Montagues), is there a curse that has been the traveling companion of the Kennedy family? This question came to mind as the grandson and adult daughter of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend are presumed dead after the pair’s canoe apparently capsized in the Chesapeake Bay, aonenews reported on Friday.

In a statement issued Friday night, Townsend, according to report, said the search for her daughter, 40-year-old Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, and 8-year-old grandson, Gideon, was now a recovery effort.
“With profound sadness, I share the news that the search for my beloved daughter Maeve and grandson Gideon has turned from rescue to recovery,” Townsend said in the statement.
“Maeve was vivid. You always knew when she was in a room,” Townsend added. “Her laughter was loud, unabashed and infectious. She did everything with her full self and her whole heart.”

The pair, as the story has it, went missing late Thursday afternoon in waters near the pair’s Shady Side, Maryland home, about 25 miles south of Annapolis, officials said.

“Timeline of Some of The Tragedies Recorded in the Kennedy Lineage:
1941 Rosemary Kennedy, who is mentally ill, is institutionalized following a failed lobotomy. She is the eldest Kennedy daughter of Joseph and Rose.
1944 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the oldest Kennedy son, dies in a plane crash over the English Channel during World War II. The pilot was 29 at the time of his death.
1948 Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish dies in a plane crash in France at age 28. Her husband, William John Robert Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, died in World War II.Top
1963 Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the second son of President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, dies on August 7, two days after he was born almost six weeks premature.

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on Nov. 22 in Dallas. He was 46.
1964 Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy child, escapes death in a plane crash that claims an aide, Edward Moss.
1968 Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated on June 5 in Los Angeles. The 42 year old had just won California’s Democratic presidential primary election.Top
1969 Edward M. Kennedy, drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island. Mary Jo Kopechne, an aide who was in the car with him, dies in the accident.
1973 Edward M. Kennedy, the senator’s son, loses his right leg to cancer.

Joseph P. Kennedy 2d, the son of Robert and Ethel, is the driver in a car accident on Cape Cod that leaves one passenger permanently paralyzed.
1984 David A. Kennedy, son of Robert, dies of a drug overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel. He was 28.Top
1986 Patrick Kennedy, the teenage son of Sen. Edward Kennedy, undergoes treatment for cocaine addiction.
1991 William Kennedy Smith, the son of Jean Kennedy Smith, is accused of raping a woman at the family’s Palm Beach, Florida, vacation home. He is tried and acquitted.
1997 Michael Kennedy, the son of Robert, dies in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado. He was 39. Prior to the accident, Michael made headlines for allegedly having a long-term affair with his children’s babysitter.
1999 John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, die when their plane crashes in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, Ma. Kennedy was flying the Piper Saratoga plane that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.
2002 Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was found guilty in June by a Connecticut jury of the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. Skakel was 15 when Moxley, also 15, was found bludgeoned to death outside her Greenwich, Conn., home. Skakel was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison in August.
2005 Rosemary Kennedy dies on January 7 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, at age 86.
2008 Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor on May 20.
2009 Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy dies on August 25. His sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died two weeks earlier, on August 11.
2012 Mary Richardson Kennedy, the 52-year-old estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is found dead in the barn of her Bedford, N.Y., home. She died of an apparent suicide.

Gov. Larry Hogan said that he had been in touch with Townsend ‘and on behalf of the people of Maryland I expressed our most heartfelt sympathies and prayers to her and to her entire family during this difficult time.’”

A Maryland Department of Natural Resources statement says a preliminary investigation “revealed that the pair may have been paddling the canoe from a residence in Shady Side, MD out into the bay to retrieve a ball and were unable to paddle back to shore”.

An overturned canoe, approximately matching the description the pair were in, was later found, the department stated.

Kennedy Townsend comes from one of the most famous political clans in U.S. history. She’s the oldest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and niece of former President John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy.

She served two terms of lieutenant governor of Maryland.

Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean is executive director of Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiative.

–aonenews