Ed Markey: “Massachusetts will miss Millie O'Neill dearly. She and Tip were one of the greatest couples of the greatest generation.…”

“Massachusetts will miss Millie O'Neill dearly. She and Tip were one of the greatest couples of the greatest generation. I am sure that if Tip were with us today, he would say that he was the luckiest man in the world to have met his sweetheart Millie in high school, to have her willingly and joyfully join him on a journey through the highs and the lows of national politics in America's last half century, to have raised three wonderful sons and two outstanding daughters. Tommy, who I met at Boston College; Susan, who was my classmate and a history major with me at Boston College. I have known them my whole life. This is a wonderful family, and they balanced the demands of that journey against the love and attention that a family requires. And Millie emerged from it all with her love for Tip as strong and as deep and as transparent as the two schoolkids they once were. She leaves a legacy of warmth and companionship that will glow for the ages. Millie was pretty good at taking Tip's favorite sayings and turning them around to her advantage. One of my favorites is retold in Tip's wonderful autobiography, Man of the House. Tip loved to remind people in politics of the priceless advice of Mrs. O'Brian, a neighbor and teacher in North Cambridge. She taught him the lesson that you should never assume someone will vote for you. You have to ask, said Mrs. O'Brian. So Tip writes, "Poor Millie is sick of hearing me tell the Mrs. O'Brian story, and I can't blame her.…”