Kitty Dukakis, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, has died at the age of 88 from dementia complications.
Kitty died on Friday in her home in Brookline, Massachusetts, her son told The Washington Post.
The politician’s wife had previously battled depression and addiction – a fight she admitted to in a memoir.
She suffered from alcoholism after her husband lost his presidential bid in 1988.
Kitty became an advocate electroconvulsive therapy for depression treatment as well.
She served as the first lady of Massachusetts while her husband was governor from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991.
The late activist worked as a modern-dance instructor, a social worker and an arts patron. She advocated for the homeless and many other vulnerable groups, The Post reported.
Kitty also helped the resettlement of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kitty Dukakis, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, has died at the age of 88 from dementia complications
Kitty died on Friday in her home in Brookline, Massachusetts
The activist also participated in a humanitarian trip to the Thai-Cambodian border in 1985, where she begged the Thai colonel to let her into an off-limits refugee camp.
‘I knew I wasn’t going to get off my knees until he said: “Yes.”‘ she told the Boston Globe.
After gaining access, she took an orphan back to the States to be reunited with a relative living near Boston.
She dedicated her time as Massachusetts’ first lady to humanitarian concerns and helped create the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Outside of her activism, she was known for her chain-smoking, fashion sense and love of high-class treats, such as designer clothes and first-class travel.
This contrasted her husband, who mowed his own lawn as governor and who preferred to fly coach.
‘Michael can take a peanut out of the can. I eat the whole can,’ she once said.
She described herself as a ‘strong’ and ‘assertive’ woman who often pushed back against people she didn’t think were taking her or her husband’s causes seriously.
She described herself as a ‘strong’ and ‘assertive’ woman who often pushed back against people she didn’t think were taking her or her husband’s causes seriously
‘Have you ever heard the words assertive or aggressive used to describe the male spouse of a candidate?’ she questioned to The Los Angeles Times at the time.
She also fiercely campaigned for her husband in his fight for presidency against then-Vice President George HW Bush.
She also spoke openly about her addiction problems, which stemmed from her abusing diet pills at 19, leading to 26 years of abusing amphetamine, according to The Post.
She felt the need to help other addicts too and took her struggles public during his campaign.
‘One of the tenets of recovery is helping others. I knew I would have an even greater opportunity to help others in a national campaign,’ she said at the time.
But as her husband’s campaign continued, she would find herself becoming dependent on alcohol to deal with the stress.
While her husband returned to the State House after his defeat, his wife did not return to normal life. She would bid her husband goodbye before going back into house to drink.
The Massachusetts native hid liquor in the laundry basket and would sometimes be discovered passed out in a pool of her own vomit by her husband and children, according to The Post.
The politician’s wife had previously battled depression and addiction – a fight she admitted to in a memoir. She also suffered from alcoholism after her husband lost his presidential bid in 1988
She was hospitalized for the condition in February 1989 and in November of that year, she would drink rubbing alcohol. She nearly died.
Kitty also admitted to drinking vanilla extract, mouthwash and nail polish remover during a binge.
A year later, she published a memoir detailing her childhood, her life in politics, and her addictions.
For a decade, she would go in and out of treatment for addiction and psychiatric facilities.
She eventually turned to electroconvulsive therapy for depression in 2001 on her 38th anniversary to her husband. Kitty recalled feeling instant relief.
Kitty was born in Cambridge, near Boston, on December 26, 1936 to Jane Goldberg and Harry Ellis Dickson, who performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly 50 years.
She married her first husband John Chaffetz at the age of 20 and the couple shared a son together.
She would later marry Michael after meeting him at Lesley College when a mutual friend set them up. They wed in 1963 to the disapproval of his parents.
They would go on to have two children and Michael would adopt her son.