Born April 7, 1938, to mother Judith Bland, a concert cellist, and father Fred Ewing, a research Chemist at Caltech. She spent her childhood growing up in Pasadena, California. At age 2, her parents separated and she was raised by her mother and maternal grandparents, Reginald Bland and Flavilla Corson. At age 15, her father gave her an Arabian horse named Pokey. She learned to ride both English and Western.

In 1957, she was the first class of women to enter Cal Poly State University at San Luis Obispo, and majored in animal husbandry. At college she met Gordon Kennedy and married him on July 20, 1959. In 1960, she gave birth to her twin daughters Michelle and Jackie (they were 6 weeks premature) in Southern California, where Gordon was a foreman for a cattle ranch. In 1961, she gave birth to her son Jim in Southern California, where Gordon was foreman for another ranch. In 1968, she gave birth to her daughter Diana in Central California, where the family lived on a 40-acre vineyard.

After years of supporting Gordon in the farming business, she divorced him in 1983. She set up household with her older brother, Bland Ewing, in the Bay Area. She made a living as a bookkeeper-clerical worker and spent her free time at a horse stable, where her brother bought her a horse named First Class. After her youngest daughter, Diana, graduated from high school, she moved to Grass Valley to live on her own. She continued to make a living as a bookkeeper. At age 52, she went through a medical crisis (breast cancer) that made her reevaluate her life. She made the decision to return to college to obtain a teaching credential so moved to Chico, California with her brother, who was retiring because he was showing signs of Huntington's disease. A few years later they moved to Paradise, California. She eventually graduated with a degree in Graphic Arts.

Twelve years after her first bout with breast cancer, it returned in 2005. She battled the cancer for two years before passing away on February 1, 2007.

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