BOSTON- Kara Kennedy Allen, the only daughter of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has died at age 51, according to people familiar with the situation.
Kennedy, who had been battling lung cancer since 2003, died on Friday evening at a sports club in Washington, D.C., they said on Saturday.
Sean Richardson, a Kennedy family friend, said a statement would be issued shortly.
Kennedy was the oldest child and only daughter of the late Democratic Senator and the mother of two teenage children, a son and a daughter.
She graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts. She served on the advisory board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and was also a director emeriti of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
She accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her father shortly before his death from brain cancer in 2009.
She is survived by her two children, her mother Joan Kennedy and her brothers, Edward Kennedy Jr. and Patrick Kennedy.
(Reuters)