Donald M. Kennedy
Donald M. Kennedy, who survived polio, competed in the Paralympics for many years, and went on to a successful career in law, died at home in Hampton Bays last Thursday. The 81-year-old, who spent summers in Montauk since 1954, had been under a doctor’s care for atrial fibrillation.
Mr. Kennedy overcame a serious bout with polio that kept him hospitalized from the age of 3 to 14 and left his legs paralyzed, according to his wife of 56 years, Cecilia Kennedy. He lived at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, at the time a residential hospital for children who contracted the disease. He walked with full braces for many years, but was confined to a wheelchair since the late 1980s.
“He truly was an exceptional man,” Mrs. Kennedy said, adding that he never let his disability stop him. “He never allowed it,” she said.
At St. Charles, he was educated by Dominican nuns. He also formed friendships with many boys who were hospitalized with him that lasted to their deaths, his wife said. After he was released, he lived at home in Queens, attending Newtown High School and then Queens College.
It was in his Long Island City neighborhood that he met the former Cecilia Galgan as a teenager. A friendship blossomed into romance years later, and the couple were married in 1958, while Mr. Kennedy was in law school.
Mr. Kennedy worked for Lufthansa and Pam Am Airlines, in the insurance field, during the day while attending Brooklyn Law School at night five days a week, his wife said. A Manhattan law firm specializing in maritime law approached him after he earned his degree, and he eventually became a senior partner.
In 1986, Mr. Kennedy and Jack Lillis founded an admiralty law firm under the name Kennedy and Lillis in Lower Manhattan. The firm later moved its offices to Maiden Lane, where it remains today as Kennedy, Lillis, Schmidt, and English. Throughout his career, Mr. Kennedy traveled the world on trips involving the firm’s maritime cases.
Mr. Kennedy also traveled throughout Europe and the Far East as a Paralympian, competing from the late 1950s through the late 1970s or early 1980s, his wife said. “He was a tremendous athlete,” she said. From his wheelchair, he raced and threw the discus, javelin, and shot put.
Mr. Kennedy was born to James Kennedy and the former Mary Frances McCarthy on Nov. 4, 1932, in Brooklyn. His older brothers, Eugene Kennedy and James Kennedy, died before him, as did a sister, Jacquelyn Kennedy, who died in an accident at the age of 12.
He had been spending summers in Montauk when his mother and her brother built a saltbox on Soundview Drive that he and his wife later inherited. When he retired in 1993, he moved there, and then built a house in Hampton Bays, where he and his wife spent six months of the year.
During his time in Montauk, he enjoyed his hobby of ship modeling and built furniture out of wood in a workshop he built behind his house after he retired. Music and singing were also passions. In college he had been a member of a glee club, and in Montauk he was a member of St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church’s choir.
Mr. Kennedy was active in the Knights of Columbus in Long Island City, where he served as a grand knight.
A wake was held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Saturday and Sunday. A funeral was held on Monday at St. Therese of Lisieux, followed by burial at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk.