Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, died on Friday at her Brookline home, her family said.
The cause of her death was said to have been complications from dementia, her son, John, told The Washington Post.
Dukakis, 88, is survived by her 91-year-old husband, Michael Dukakis, who lost the 1988 presidential election to Vice President George H. W. Bush.
She served as Massachusetts’ first lady from 1975 to 1979 and then again from 1983 to 1991, during her husband’s three terms as the Bay State’s governor.
Michael Dukakis with his wife Kitty while talking with supporters. Bettmann ArchiveDukakis was public about her struggles with addiction and fought depression, and in 1991, published a powerful memoir about her struggle with alcoholism called “Now You Know.”
Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, named its addiction treatment center after Dukakis.
During her husband’s presidential campaign, Dukakis shared her struggles with addiction whenever she met with high schoolers.
She famously started undergoing electroconvulsive therapy in 2001 to treat her depression, allowing producers from “60 Minutes” to film one of her sessions. She released a 2006 book about her experience called “Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy.”
Dukakis was an advocate for the homeless as well as Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees.
Dukakis earned a bachelor’s degree from Lesley College in 1963, the same year she married Michael. The couple had two daughters together, and Michael went on to formally adopt John, her son from her first marriage to John Chaffetz.
Dukakis, who was Jewish, faced criticism for marrying a Christian, but insisted marrying someone outside her faith strengthened her Judaism.
Dukakis earned a master’s degree in communication in 1982, and a master’s in social work during the mid-1990s — both from Boston University.
