Katharine Q. Seelye

She reported on conflicts around the world and for a time was the only American broadcast journalist reporting from Baghdad during the U.S. “shock and awe” bombing campaign in 2003.

Ms. Schroeder, who had a long career in the House, helped steer passage of legislation on family leave, pregnancy discrimination and other progressive causes.

She helped propel Jimmy Carter from rural Georgia to the White House and became the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt.

Read Rosalynn Carter’s full obituary. (Published 2023)

Katharine Q. Seelye, an obituary writer, was a reporter for The Times for 28 years. She previously covered national politics and New England.

A place at her dinner tables, which sat 75, provided access to networks of money, influence and power across cultural and political divides.

Married to Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, she became a proponent of electroshock therapy after unsuccessful treatments for alcoholism and depression.

Overlooked No More: Katharine McCormick, Force Behind the Birth Control Pill

Her book “Against Our Will” argued that rape was a crime of power and violence, not passion; it led to laws that made it easier to prosecute rapists.

The wife of Senator Edward Kennedy for a quarter of a century, she both basked and struggled in the reflected glare of a political family in the spotlight.