I was wondering why Doris Kearns-Goodwin was out of circulation

[malaise]

I knew she had lost friends in a plane crash but I see that her husband, speechwriter Richard Goodwin died on Sunday.
Goodwin wrote for Kennedy and Johnson

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/21/613062729/richard-goodwin-crafter-of-johnsons-famous-we-shall-overcome-speech-dies
<snip>
Speechwriter Richard Goodwin, a driving force in American politics during times of upheaval in the 1960s and the husband of presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, has died at age 86.

Goodwin was a key aide and speechwriter for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, crafting messages about civil rights and equality and challenging America to live up to its ideals.

Goodwin died of cancer, the Associated Press reports, citing a statement from his wife. Doris Kearns Goodwin says her husband died on Sunday at their home in Concord, Mass.

"Dick Goodwin led an extraordinary life," former President Barack Obama said on Monday. "He was a clerk on the Supreme Court, a Congressional aide who helped lay bare a national scandal, a speechwriter to President Kennedy – and that was all before his thirtieth birthday."

[JNelson6563]

1. An extraordinary life her husband had!

No doubt this is a sad and difficult time for her. Thanks for the update. I'm truly sorry to hear of her loss but didn't realize her husband was quite all that! What a rich life they had together.

[malaise]

2. He also wrote that famous speech by Robert Kennedy

in South Africa. He was light years ahead of his time.

[JNelson6563]

3. Clearly this is a loss to us all!

[Exotica]

4. Richard Goodwin's first draft of the 'Great Society' speech

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/lbj-speechwriter-richard-goodwins-first-draft-of-the-great-society-speech/1035/

Great man, he did much good in his life.

[malaise]

6. Thanks for this

[Laffy Kat]

5. So sorry for Kerns-Goodwin family.

I've always really liked her. I know she has sons and I hope they are close by her side during this time. I didn't realize her husband was a speech writer.

[malaise]

7. There are three sons - one from Richard's previous marriage and two from theirs

She was a shell of herself after her friends died in a plane crash after leaving a party at their home back in 2014.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/post/katz-visited-doris-kearns-goodwins-home-crash
<snip>
A representative for Doris Kearns Goodwin says Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz attended an event at her home shortly before he and six others died in a plane crash.

The representative says the event Saturday was to support an education initiative involving one of her sons.

Katz was among seven killed Saturday night when a private jet crashed and caught fire as it attempted to take off from Hanscom Field outside Boston on its way to Atlantic City, New Jersey. There were no survivors.

[Laffy Kat]

8. How horrible. I had not heard about it until now.

My favorite book of Kerns-Goodwin, isn't a biography of a president, it's about baseball, Wait 'Til Next Year. It is actually autobiographical and centers on her childhood love of baseball. She really won me over with her precious memories.

[malaise]

9. Must have been a good read

[Freddie]

10. Love that book!

Such a great writer. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys is a great one too, not just for the history but a great read.

[pangaia]

11. OH YES !!!!!!! A Great book.

For me especially so as I grew up in north jersey at that same time, went to Yankee and Dodger games, knew her neighborhood, can even remember the smell of the walking tunnel going from the parking lot to Jones Beach. :&gt ))))

[malaise]

12. You can remember the smell

Damn you're good - I remember the smell of my paternal grandma's kitchen when my favorite aunt was baking bread. Of course eating the hot bread laced with butter or peanut butter is an even happier memory.

[pangaia]

13. You smell remembrance is much more enjoyable than mine in this case.

It was a dank smell, musty, with a tinge of urine..

But then we hit the beach !!



And later getting back in the car with sis mom and dad, all sunburned, dried out, but with wet bathing suits, sand between our toes.. driving back to jersey.

[malaise]

14. Yep I know that smell

from the tunnels at our national stadium back in the day

[pangaia]

19. Yup.

[mehrrh]

15. me too

I also wondered why we had not heard from this historian in this tumultuous time of history-making events.
I am sorry to hear of the passing of her husband.

[malaise]

16. Yes

She was a big Obama supporter

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/barack-obama-doris-kearns-goodwin-interview
<snip>
His presidency is winding down. A contentious election—fought largely over his rec­ord and legacy—is about to be decided. With that in mind, Barack Obama recently invited the presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin to the White House for a long, personal, open-ended conversation. The meeting, arranged by Vanity Fair, took place in the president’s private dining room, just off the Oval Office.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is no stranger to these precincts. She has been in and out of the West Wing ever since 1967, when, as a 24-year-old White House Fellow, she worked closely with Lyndon Johnson during the last year of his presidency (and then afterward as he wrote his memoirs). She has earned a raft of literary prizes, including a Pulitzer, for books about J.F.K., L.B.J., Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and, most notably, Abraham Lincoln—the subject of her landmark history, Team of Rivals, whose title gave America’s political language a new and permanent catchphrase. (Steven Spielberg would use Goodwin’s book as the basis for his film Lincoln, and when Daniel Day-Lewis won the 2012 best-actor Oscar for his portrayal of the president, he entered the Vanity Fair after-party with the author in tow.)

And this - the Con's credibility gap

[Boomerproud]

17. Bravo Richard Goodwin for a life well-lived.

I know from his writings he was passionate about South America. Dear, dear soul! Peace and strength to Doris and her sons.

[malaise]

18. He was passionate about Civil Rights

everywhere