The Tragedy Of Corey Lewandowski's Wife Alison Gets Sadder & Sadder

Corey Lewandowski's wife has come up in the media quite a bit, but for all the wrong reasons. Alison Lewandowski's name in the tabloids followed rumors of her husband's messy affair with Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security. (Former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks had an alleged affair with Corey as well). While there isn't much information about Alison — as she seems to be a relatively private person, despite Corey's aspirations for a higher-profile political career — she has been thrust into the spotlight before, and for an even more heartbreaking reason. Before she tied the knot with the DHS senior advisor in 2005, Alison was married to Brian Kinney, a Massachusetts native who tragically died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

On September 11, 2001, Kinney, a 28-year-old manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston, boarded United Airlines Flight 175, headed for California to meet with a client. At 9:03 a.m., the flight hit the South Tower of New York City's World Trade Center, leaving no survivors. Though Alison hasn't divulged many details of her first marriage to the media, her and Kinney's love story speaks for itself. As recounted in a poignant story about grief in The New York Times from 2002, Alison and Kinney met as teenagers at a gas station in their hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Kinney's family owned the business; Alison's father had once been an employee. Their families seemed to catch on to their chemistry, as Alison's dad told her to start cashing her paychecks with Kinney — he was normally prohibited from handling the money. Still, his father had given him the green light to handle transactions with Alison. Their puppy love blossomed into a relationship, and the pair eventually married in 1998. Three years later, Alison was left a widow.

Alison Lewandowski's friends and family rallied behind her after the loss of her husband. Residents of Tyngsboro, the Massachusetts town where Alison worked as an elementary school teacher, banded together to raise money for Brian Kinney's family in the aftermath of 9/11. In return, Alison gave $10,000 to the town to build a baseball field, which was dedicated to Kinney in 2011. "Alison said Brian loved playing baseball, and watching baseball his whole life," Alison Page, the recreation director, told The Lowell Sun at the time. "So we decided to dedicate this field in his memory."

Kinney's death left an indelible mark on the communities in which he made an impact. In 2018, Bishop Guertin High School — Kinney's alma mater, located in Nashua, New Hampshire — honored the '91 alum with a plaque. Kinney played baseball at Bishop Guertin, making the baseball field the most fitting location for the memorial. "It is in his memory and his compassion for others that this memorial plaque is being dedicated to him here at the BG baseball fields," the school's baseball coach, Mike Lozeau, said at the ceremony, per The Nashua Telegraph. University of Massachusetts Lowell also memorialized Kinney, a '95 graduate, with "Kinney Square," the spot that once belonged to his father's gas station (which eventually became university property). Remembering the birthplace of her relationship with Kinney, Alison told UMass Lowell, "I am so glad the university chose to honor him like this."