BOSTON —

Joan Bennett Kennedy, the first wife of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Boston at the age of 89.

Kennedy was married to the senator for 24 years and was the mother to his three children, Kara, Ted Jr., and Patrick.

Raised in a conservative Republican home, her life quickly changed when she married Ted Kennedy in 1958, just as the Kennedys were accelerating their political lives. By 1962, at the age of 25, she became the youngest wife of the youngest U.S. senator ever elected in the history of the United States.

Playing the piano instantly became her trademark while campaigning with the Kennedys, where she would frequently open political rallies and warm up the crowd with her piano serenades.

After the couple's divorce in 1982, she m

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