Victoria Reggie Kennedy - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

The second of six children, she was born Victoria Anne Reggie in Crowley, Louisiana to Louisiana judge and banker Edmund M. Reggie and Doris Ann (née Boustany), a Democratic national committeewoman. She is of Lebanese descent, as all her grandparents were Maronites from Lebanon, who immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Louisiana. Her grandparents became important players in the local Roman Catholic church, and later their children became involved in business and politics.

Reggie's immediate family was wealthy because of money from her mother's family's interest in the Bunny Bread baking concern in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised in a family that was constantly involved in politics and campaigns. At the 1956 Democratic National Convention, her father helped deliver his state for John F. Kennedy's unsuccessful bid for the vice-presidential nomination. Over time, John Kennedy developed a close social relationship with the family. Her mother cast the only Louisiana delegate vote for Ted Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, although State Senator Tony Guarisco may have also been recruited to vote for Kennedy.

Reggie attended parochial schools growing up and was a straight-A student. She attended Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans, where she graduated with a bachelor of arts in English, magna cum laude, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was president of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She then received her Juris Doctor degree, summa cum laude in 1979 from Tulane University Law School. There she was a member of Tulane Law Review. Her education at Tulane, along with twenty years of other Tulane tuition for her brothers and sisters, was paid for by scholarships awarded by a political ally of her father.