Inverness Realtor was personal secretary to Ted Kennedy in the early 1960s
Like most people, Mary Jane Felt remembered exactly where she was on Nov. 22, 1963, when she learned of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy: in the Senate office of his brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, working as his personal secretary.
"My mother always said how terrible it was to watch (Kennedy) who loved his brother so much, after hearing the news of his death," says Elizabeth Wakeman of Lake in the Hills, Felt's oldest daughter. "It was horrible."
Felt passed away on Saturday at the age of 82, but a wall in her Inverness home documents her long association with the senator. The family cherishes their correspondence, which continued until his death in 2009.
Northwest suburban residents are more likely to know Felt as an award-winning Realtor, who specialized in selling homes in the Inverness area for more than 30 years. Few knew about her life before moving to the Chicago area, when she held a trusted role with one of the most high-powered families in the country.
Felt was born and raised in Boston, where she attended Katharine Gibbs College for its highly acclaimed executive secretarial program. Her first job was as a sales clerk at Jordan Marsh & Company department store, before getting the placement in Kennedy's office.
Felt, who was Mary Jane Duris at the time, ultimately served as personal secretary to Kennedy from 1961 to 1964. Consequently, she was among his inner circle during his first campaign for the Senate - her mother and two aunts also worked on his campaign - and in Washington D.C., beginning in 1962, when he began his long career in the senate.
During the years Felt worked for Kennedy, his brother John F. Kennedy was in the White House and his other older brother, Robert, was the nation's Attorney General.
Felt's family only recently learned of correspondence between their mother and Evelyn Lincoln, President Kennedy's personal secretary, that is preserved in the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
"It was pretty ordinary, mundane stuff," Wakeman says, "but it was so exciting to us to see that all of this had been preserved."
Felt left Kennedy's side in 1964, when her husband, the late Judge James Felt, was elected judge of the village court of suburban Bellwood, and they moved to Westchester. He would go on to serve 20 years in the Cook County circuit court system, serving in every division except chancery.
Felt maintained a close relationship with her former boss. He nearly stopped by their Inverness home during a Chicago trip in the 1970s, but at the last minute his schedule prevented the visit.
"My mother always said he was very kind and good to her and to all the people who were around him," says Wakeman, herself an attorney in Crystal Lake. "She described (Kennedy) as respectful and someone who listened. He was always willing to compromise to find common ground."
Felt did not know Mary Jo Kopechne, the campaign specialist who died in the infamous 1969 car accident in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts where Ted Kennedy had been behind the wheel. She told family she thought there was more to the story.
"That was not the person she knew," Wakeman says simply.
Felt turned to selling real estate in 1974, when the youngest of her three children started kindergarten. She was a top producing agent with Robert L. Nelson Realtors before joining ReMax Unlimited in Palatine, from where she eventually retired in 2006.
Besides her daughter, Felt is survived by her daughter, Margo Felt, and son, John Felt (Jordan Peavey), and four grandchildren.
Visitation will take place from 5-8 p.m. April 28 at Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home, 185 E. Northwest Hwy. in Palatine, before a memorial Mass at 10:30 a.m. April 29 at Holy Family Catholic Church, 2515 W. Palatine Road in Inverness.