Latest Tragedy Has Us Revisiting the Kennedy Family Curse

Cortney O'Brien | April 07, 2020 11:00 AM

Another member of the Kennedy family has died in unusual circumstances. On April 2, Robert F. Kennedy's granddaughter Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and her eight-year-old son Gideon took a canoe out on to Maryland's Chesapeake Bay to retrieve a lost kickball after playing in her mother's home in Shady Side, MD. The wind and choppy water soon pushed them out into the open bay. Authorities had conducted a days-long rescue search, but on Monday, police and the Charles County Dive and Rescue team found Mrs. McKean's body 2.5 miles from her mother's residence.

Police are still searching for Gideon's body in what is now classified as a recovery effort.

Maeve's widow, David McKean, shared an emotional post on Facebook. In it, he explains that Maeve was his "everything" and Gideon was "deeply compassionate" and wise beyond his years. David said that he and his surviving children, 7-year-old Gabriella and two-and-a-half-year-old Toby, are heartbroken but overwhelmed with gratitude for well wishers' outpouring of love.

The Kennedys have sadly been no stranger to tragedy over the years. The family has experienced such a string of unfortunate events that culture has deemed it "the Kennedy curse." In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, TX. His brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was shot and killed while campaigning for president in 1968. Their sister, Kathleen Cavendish, died in a plane crash in 1948. JFK's son, John F. Kennedy Jr., perished in a plane crash with his wife, Carolyn Jeanne Bessette-Kennedy. Last year, Robert F. Kennedy's granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill overdosed at just 22 years old.