Aug 26, 2009 6:57 am US/Eastern
Pan Am 103 Family Grateful For Kennedy's Help
SHREWSBURY (WBZ) ―
Throughout his life, Senator Ted Kennedy knew the pain of loss, first with the early deaths of his brother Joe, Jr. and his sister Kathleen. Later, with the assassinations of his two remaining brothers, JFK and Bobby.
This is perhaps why Kennedy made a point to reach out to local families who had suffered the loss of a loved one to violence, families like the Boulanger family of Shrewsbury.
"He always called and said 'What can I do for you?'" said Jeannine Boulanger.
More than twenty years ago, Boulanger's 20-year-old daughter Nicole died aboard Pan Am Flight 103.
She was returning home from a study abroad program with Syracuse University, when her plane was blown up by terrorists over Lockerbie, Scotland.
"All I remember from there was being on the floor of JFK Airport with cameras on top of me," she said. "I couldn't get up, I couldn't move."
During that painful time, and throughout the ensuing two decades, Boulanger received numerous phone calls from the senator himself, not an aide.
"Ted Kennedy would call my house to let me know for example, the days the terrorists were being moved from Libya, all the preparations going on at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands for the trial and that his personal aide was going to make sure everything was in place for us."
"I was very moved," she said.
Boulanger says both Massachusetts senators have been an enormous help in her efforts to make sure no other family has to feel the same pain.
"We have been blessed to have two senators in this state who have done a tremendous amount in helping us, both in the area of counterterrorism and aviation security and who have co-signed so many letters, documents and bills on our behalf."
But, perhaps it's the little things that mean the most.
Boulanger remembers how Kennedy helped her recover a cherished memento of her daughter.
"There were some things found at the crash site for whom identification could not be made," she said.
"They were photographed and put in a book. The FBI circulated the book, in fact they came to our meetings, and a friend of Nicole's, who happened to be with her in London, recognized some jewelry Nicole had purchased for me for Christmas. It was through Senator Kennedy's intervention that those items were released."
Boulanger says she will always be grateful and will always remember Ted Kennedy, for the support and the kinship he showed her and her family.
"You always felt that you had a friend in Ted Kennedy and if something was possible he would help bring it forth. And that was really important; that our victims mattered and that he would be so supportive."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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