Julia Stimson Thorne was an American writer and the first wife of former United States. Senator and current United States. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Background
Julia Thorne was a direct eleventh generation descendant of John Bowne, a defiant activist in the struggle for religious freedom. William Thorne Senior, third signatory of the Flushing Remonstrance is also an ancestor. Thorne was also a distant cousin of John Kerry through their common ancestor Elizabeth Fones.
Education
She spent much of her childhood in Rome and attended the international school, Marymount in Rome while her brother David attended the Overseas School of Rome. She attended the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia.
Career
Her maternal great-grandfather was journalist David South. Barry and her paternal great-great-grandfather was Alfred Lebbeus Loomis, a physician who served as president of the Association of American Physicians. Her father had been appointed to a diplomatic post and was publisher of The Voice of the Daily American. She took classes at the New York School of Interior Design and Radcliffe College.
Thorne met Kerry in 1963 at her family"s estate in Bay Shore, New York on Long Island.
She and John had two daughters together: Alexandra Forbes Kerry (born 1973) Vanessa Bradford Kerry (born 1976) She overcame depression by 1990, and by all accounts the two had an amicable relationship. She endorsed, stating, "I think he is an immensely talented statesman, and I am 100 percent behind him".
She was being treated for transitional-cell carcinoma, a form of cancer. Thorne died of bladder cancer in Concord, Massachusetts.