Robert F. Kennedy’s granddaughter is the latest member of the storied political clan to succumb to the so-called “Kennedy curse” — the family’s string of untimely deaths from assassinations, accidents, and overdoses.
Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, was staying at the family’s sprawling Cape Cod compound on Thursday when she died of an apparent drug overdose. She once wrote about her battle with depression and attempting to take her own life.
The list of misfortunes begins with future President John F. Kennedy’s oldest brother, Joe Kennedy Jr., who died in 1944 when he volunteered to pilot a secret World War II bombing mission in France. Two in-flight explosions hit the aircraft, killing him and another pilot. He was 29 years old.
Only four years later, JFK’s sister Kathleen Kennedy died when a small plane crashed during a storm in France. She was only 28.
In 1963, President Kennedy and wife Jacqueline gave birth to their third child, Patrick, nearly six weeks early. He survived for less than two days. Later that year, the president, 46 years old, was assassinated in Dallas.
Saoirse’s grandfather, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was shot dead in Los Angeles in 1968, just as he was gaining Democratic support for his own presidential run.
The next year, JFK and RFK’s brother, Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy — who died in 2009 at the age of 77 — wondered whether “some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.”
JFK’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette died in a plane crash in 1999. JFK Jr. was piloting the plane at night when he apparently lost his bearings — and the aircraft plummeted into the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, one of Robert F. Kennedy’s sons, David Kennedy, died in 1984 of a drug overdose in a Florida hotel. He was 28.
Another son, Michael Kennedy, died in a Colorado ski accident on New Year’s Eve 1997. He was 39.
And in 2011, Ted Kennedy’s daughter Kara Kennedy died at age 51 of a heart attack during a workout at a health club.
There is even a wiki page about this curse here.
Who gave the curse???
Legend has it, that the curse began with Joe Kennedy. Supposedly Rav Aharon Kotler had asked Joe Kennedy [the patriarch of the family] for assistance in obtaining certificates for European Jews, and to help lobby the president to work on to save the Jews. Kennedy refused and was rude to the Rosh Yeshiva.
| Joseph Kennedy Sr. |
Supposedly, the legend goes, Rav Kotler was upset with him for his attitude, and wished him ill saying he should never have "nachas" from his descendants.
IS IT TRUE???
We will never know. But one thing is FOR SURE - there is something spooky going on in that family. They should really all get their mezuzas checked....
