State Senator Ed Kennedy, a Lowell native who served as a city councilor, county commissioner, and mayor of his hometown before joining the Legislature, died Wednesday, according to legislative officials. He was 74.
Kennedy had represented the First Middlesex District, a five-community district along the New Hampshire border, since 2019.
He served in some sphere of public office in five different decades, and “loved politics and he loved government,” said University of Massachusetts president Marty Meehan, who managed Kennedy’s first Lowell city council campaign in the late 1970s and knew him for 50 years.
“He was a kind, gentle person,” Meehan said Thursday. “He wasn’t negative. He was more the type of person to get along with people and try to work, and find resolutions to things. … I rarely saw him ever lose his temper in all the years I knew him.”
Officials did not immediately cite a cause of death. A spokesperson for Kennedy’s office said he died Wednesday night, but said that she had no other information to share. Meehan said Kennedy had recently battled pneumonia.
Kennedy leaves behind a wife, Susan, two children, Christina and Eddie, and grandchildren.
Senate President Karen E. Spilka informed members of the chamber in a Thursday email that Kennedy died, calling him a “valued member of the Senate and passionate advocate” for those in his district.
Kennedy was first elected to the Senate in 2018 after serving two stints as a Lowell city councilor, including first from 1978 to 1985, and then again starting in 2012. He served for two years as its mayor in 2016 and 2017. He served from 1989 to 1996 as a Middlesex County commissioner before county government was largely abolished there and elsewhere in Massachusetts.
Kennedy also worked as a commercial real estate appraiser, according to his campaign website.
“Ed was a champion for education, environmental sustainability, cultural development and, of course, his beloved hometown of Lowell,” Spilka wrote in her note to senators.
Kennedy had been the Senate chair of the committee on bonding, capital expenditures, and state assets.
State Representative Rodney Elliott, a Lowell Democrat who had preceded Kennedy as the city’s mayor, said he had known Kennedy since the 1970s when his father backed Kennedy in his first city council run.
He said Kennedy was a regular sounding board for him when he first joined the Legislature, and that he spoke to him on a near-weekly basis, either about legislative issues or family. Kennedy, he said, loved attending his grandchildren’s lacrosse, basketball, and soccer games.
“We have a big void,” Elliott said. “It’s a sad day for the city. I’m very sad for his family.”
Governor Maura Healey said Thursday that to honor the senator, she was ordering flags at all state buildings to be flown at half-staff starting Thursday until the day Kennedy is interred.
“For nearly 50 years, he has been a fixture of the Lowell government, dedicating his life to service and delivering for his community,” Healey said in a statement. “It’s been an honor to partner with him on everything from housing to education.”
US Representative Lori Trahan, a Lowell native, said in a statement that Kennedy’s legacy is “written into the very fabric of our community.”
“He carried Lowell with him in every role he held,” she said, “never losing sight of the city that shaped him and that he, in turn, helped to shape for the better.”
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
