Kitty Dukakis, the first active lady in Massachusetts and Humanitarian, died of alcoholism and depression with the help of electric therapy, then in support of treatment with her husband, Michael S. Dukakis, former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, Friday night at her home in Brooklyn.
Her son, John, said that the reason was the complications of dementia.
Her family said in a statement that Mrs. Dukakis “lived a full life fighting to make the world a better place and share weaknesses to help others confront them.”
Mrs. Dukakis has long been active on behalf of the vulnerable and the people who struggled. Among the most important topics for her is the continuous education in the Holocaust. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the first president’s committee on the Holocaust, which sought to create a national monument; When this committee was replaced after a decade by the United States Souvenir Council for Holocaust, it was appointed to the Council by President George Herbo Bush.
She told the National Conservatives Association in 1983: “Perhaps in the history of the entire civilization, the Holocaust was the most important lesson in man’s insecurity for man.”
A few political wives were explicit like Mrs. Dukakis in sharing the intimate details of their struggles with addiction and depression. She wrote two books that were painted in a painful detail of their early dependence on diet pills, and how alcohol addiction later assumed her life and how At the age of 64, it turned into an electrical treatment To treat the disrupted depression, which she said was hidden long ago for drinking it.
Her successful electronic treatment led her to her and her husband to openly call for the effectiveness of the procedure, and Even to hold support groups In their home.
But during most of her time in the spotlight, she carefully hidden her drinking and depression.
She worked as a modern dance teacher and immersed in many reasons, as her husband continued his political career. Comparatively committed to the help of the weakest, it devoted itself to projects that involve the displaced, refugees, AIDS and the heartburn.
“I feel a real responsibility to help others who suffer,” she said once.
She worked with the Luther Service Association to remove children from refugee camps to incubating homes in the United States. At one point in the early eighties, I went to a refugee camp on the borders of Thailand-Gambodia to search for a missing orphan whose sister lived near Boston. When the Thai colonel did not allow her to enter the camp, she fell on her knees and begged; It has retreated. I found the boy and He gathered with his sister. He later received a full scholarship for the University of Brandis.
Mr. Dukakis said that his wife has always been sympathetic to the helpless.
“Abi Kitty used to say that when she was five or 6 years old, she would have attended the most comfortable child in her home and relaxing her,” Mr. Dukakis recalls in an interview with him in 2016. “She was a born social worker.”
She and her husband cut out different characters in a remarkable way. It was cold and calm technocrats, economical, and measuring, who shop in Kostco, picked up garbage while walking to work and released All-Points for Roumi Double Dicenies Thanksgiving This can be eliminated so that he can make soup for the next year. On the other hand, it was expressive, dilapidated, upgraded, and partial to shop in Whole Foods, first -class flying and use its influence to get what you want.
Their attractiveness became part of the 1988 presidential campaign, when the democratic candidate was. The development of her initial perception as a highly enlarged wife, not to mention responsibility, becoming one of her as a close working partner who copied her husband. The campaign’s assistants were not upset because Mr. Dukakis forgot that he was wearing a living wire when he was collected several days after his wife in a march in the convoy of St. Patrick in Chicago and heard the entire country whispered to her:
Perhaps the most permanent general moment of Mrs. Dukakis during the campaign is a discussion question that was asked about it. The director of the discussion, Bernard Shaw from CNN, Mr. Dukakis, asked: “A ruler, if Kitty Dukakis is raped, do you prefer the death penalty that is irreversible to the killers?”
“No, I’m no, Bernard”, Mr. Dukakis He answered without emotion Before reaffirming his opposition to the death penalty and discussing his record of crime. Analysts described the tone of response, one of the worst in the history of the presidential debate, and they said that he helped drown the chances of Mr. Dukakis against his opponent, Vice President George W. Bush, who went to win 40 states and presidency.
Kitty Dukakis told the correspondents later. She was also angry and described the obscene and inappropriate question.
“Praise be to God, I am not the candidate,” she said, “Because I do not know what I was going to do.”
Catherine Dixon was born on December 26, 1936, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Brooklyn near. She loved her father, Harry Ellis Dixon, Which was the first violinist with the Smeon -Smeonte Dental Orchestra and the Boston Mosul.
She had a more thorny relationship with her mother, Jin (Goldberg) Dickson, who was described by Mrs. Dukakis as an accurate perfection that was almost impossible to meet his criteria. In her first book, “Now you know”, which was published in 1990, Mrs. Dukakis remembered that her mother told her that she was beautiful but her younger sister, Jenny, had a character. Ms. Dukakis said that this and many similar comments have fed the low self -esteem that she was afflicted throughout her life.
Pennsylvania came but leaked in 1957 to marry John Shaveitz, who had son, John. She and Mr. Shaffetz divorced a few years later. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Leslie College in 1963, in the same year she married Mr. Dukakis. In 1982 she obtained a master’s degree from the University of Boston University Communications.
Dukakises had two daughters, Andrea and Cara. Along with her son, they are alive, as well as her husband and seven grandchildren. Her sister, Janet Peters, died in 2021.
While Mr. Dukakis held the position of ruler, from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991, Mrs. Dukakis kept a state office for her efforts to raise awareness.
She kept the diet prevention to her secret from her husband, who discovered her at some point and asked her to stop taking her. I did, for three months. But she took amphetamines every day in 1956 until she reviewed herself at the Hazelden Rehabilitation Center in Minnesota in 1982. The media was told that they are treated from hepatitis.
She revealed her addiction to birth control pills publicly in 1987, while her husband was carrying a democratic presidential nomination. What you did not say is that alcohol was slowly replacing the pills.
However, as I wrote later, she was drinking during the campaign, as she was around her several times, forcing her to cancel the appearances. Two days after her husband was defeated, she started drinking nets, often until she died.
She was not upset with the loss of elections, although she was afraid to get out of control if she became the first lady and set a crisis. Instead, the sudden end of the entire campaign that you left you feel empty, without purpose.
In February 1989, just three months after the elections, it was publicly admitted to alcohol and entered into a treatment center in Neborat, Ri
“I am afraid that I will not be deep in, because I am not good, and that you will see this and reject me,” she told the media when I left the center. That is, sobriety was short -term. By November, a year after the elections, it was transferred to the hospital after drinking alcohol. Her family got rid of all the wines, leaving her to drink everything she could find, including hair spray.
She and her husband thought that drinking her was driven by deep depression, but antidepressants and modern treatment did not help. They spent nearly two decades searching for treatment while going and out of rehabilitation.
Finally, learn about electrical therapy, etc., a procedure that can erase a person’s memory but can be very effective in treating the largest low conditions. She also said in her second book, “The shock: the healing power of electrical therapy” (2006), which was written with journalist Larry Tae, she turned to as a last resort.
Etc. She said that etc. prevented her from her life, raised a cloud from her mind and allowed her to experience a full group of feelings. She said that the existence of a clearer mind helped her to leave alcohol and cigarettes and allowed her to face feelings for a long time.
She wrote: “It is not etc. It is the one that treats me from these bad habits.” “It remains good enough for a long time so that I can start looking at the behaviors I want to change.”
She added: “I hate losing memories, which means losing control over my past and mind, but controlling the disabled depression deserves this relatively simple cost. It is just.”
