May 2: Death of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), 1957
Today is the anniversary of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s sudden death at Walter Reed Medical Center in 1957.
McCarthy was born on November 14, 1908 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, right outside of Appleton.
He was married to office worker and beauty queen Jean Fraser Kerr on September 29, 1953 at St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Vice President Richard Nixon was in attendance.
When he died three and a half years later, he was just 49 years old. He left behind a widow and an adopted daughter, Tierney.
His funeral was on May 6th, 1957 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Appleton, Wisconsin. Bobby Kennedy attended, but insisted on not being photographed or written about as having been there.
Kennedy’s first job had been working as counsel on McCarthy’s Senate Committee. McCarthy was the godfather to Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a fact the family now tries hard to obscure.
McCarthy’s grave is at St. Mary’s Cemetery, off by itself, occasionally defaced, overlooking the Fox River.
Fraser remarried in 1961, four years later. She never had any children.
McCarthy’s Widow Jean Fraser Kerr McCarthy Minetti died in 1979, age 55. Here is her NYT obituary. She is buried with her second husband in Silver Spring, Maryland, Civil Air Board Vice President Giacinto Joseph Minetti, who later died in 1993, age 85.
Their adopted daughter Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy Minetti Grinavac (1956-2020) died on November 11, 2020, aged 64 or so. Here is her Facebook page. She seems to have been generally left-of-center.
She refused to speak to reporters or academics about her adopted father Joe McCarthy.
McCarthy died when she was just six months old.
