Born in 1938 in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony, to Portuguese parents, Teresa Heinz Kerry studied in South Africa and Switzerland before settling in the United States. She joined the United Nations staff, working in five languages. In 1966 she married John Heinz, heir to the Pittsburgh condiment company and Republican senator from Pennsylvania.
Heinz died in a 1991 plane crash, leaving her a fortune worth hundreds of millions. She turned down offers to seek his Senate seat, focusing instead on raising their three sons and running the family's charitable foundations. She registered as a Democrat only in 2003.
She met Massachusetts senator John Kerry at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the two married in 1995. Had Kerry won in November 2004, she would have become the oldest and only the second foreign-born First Lady in US history. The first was Louisa Adams, born in England, whose husband John Quincy Adams served as president from 1825 to 1829.
Blunt by nature, she told a journalist to "shove it" and later had to apologize to Laura Bush over a comment about career history. A Gallup poll found 38 percent of Americans viewed her favorably, against 73 percent for Laura Bush. Since her first husband's death, Heinz Kerry has led the Howard Heinz Endowment and Heinz Family Philanthropies, directing funds toward environmental and women's rights causes.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.