Cindy McCain's Half Sister 'Angry' She's Hidden

by Ted Robbins

Kathleen Hensley Portalski displays newspaper clippings of her father in
World War II, as well as snapshots of herself as a child with her father.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93567413> .

Portalski is shown with her late father, Jim Hensley, who also was Cindy
McCain's father.

Nicholas Portalski, whose mother is McCain's half sister, says it's "very,
very
hurtful" that he and his mother haven't been recognized.

All Things Considered, August 18, 2008 · Last Tuesday, NPR broadcast a
story about Cindy McCain's business and charity work. In it, Ted Robbins
described McCain as the only child of Jim Hensley, a wealthy Arizona
businessman. The next morning, NPR received an email from Nicholas Portalski
of Phoenix, who heard the story with his mother.
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93567413>

"We were listening to the piece about Cindy McCain on NPR, All Things
Considered, and it just struck us very hard," Portalski said.

His mother, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, is also Hensley's daughter.

The Portalski family is accustomed to hearing Cindy McCain described as
Hensley's only child.

She's been described that way by news organizations from The New Yorker and
The New York Times to Newsweek and ABC.

McCain herself routinely uses the phrase "only child," as she did on CNN
last
month. "I grew up with my dad," she said then. "I'm an only child. My father
was a cowboy, and he really loved me very much, but I think he wanted a son
occasionally."

McCain's father was also a businessman ‹ and twice a father.

"I'm upset," Kathleen Portalski says. "I'm angry. It makes me feel like a
nonperson, kind of."

Who Is Kathleen Hensley Portalski?

Documents show Kathleen Anne Hensley was born to Jim and Mary Jeanne
Hensley on Feb. 23, 1943. They had been married for six years
when Kathleen was born.

Jim Hensley was a bombardier on a B-17, flying over Europe during
World War II.

He was injured and sent to a facility in West Virginia to recuperate.
During that time, while still married to Mary Jeanne, Hensley
met another woman ‹ Marguerite Smith. Jim divorced Mary
Jeanne and married Marguerite in 1945.

Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later, in 1954.

She may have grown up as an only child, but so did her half sister,
Kathleen,
who was raised by a single parent.

Portalski says she did see her father and her half sister from time to time.

"I saw him a few times a year," she says. "I saw him at Christmas and
birthdays,
and he provided money for school clothes, and he called occasionally."

Jim Hensley also provided credit cards and college tuition for his
grandchildren,
as well as $10,000 gifts to Kathleen and her husband, Stanley Portalski.
That
lasted a decade, they say. By then, Jim Hensley had built Hensley and Co.
into
one of the largest beer distributorships in the country. He was worth tens,
if not
hundreds, of millions of dollars.

Sole Inheritor To Hensley's Estate

When Hensley died in 2000, his will named not only Portalski but also a
daughter of his wife Marguerite from her earlier marriage. So, Cindy McCain
may be the only product of Jim and Marguerite's marriage, but she is not the
only child of either.

She was, however, the sole inheritor of his considerable estate.

Kathleen Portalski was left $10,000, and her children were left nothing.
It's a
fact Nicholas Portalski says his sister discovered the hard way.

"What she found in town ‹ on the day of or the day before or the day after
his
funeral ‹ was that the credit card didn't work anymore," Nick says.

The Portalskis live in a modest home in central Phoenix. Kathleen is
retired, as is her husband. Nicholas Portalski is a firefighter
and emergency medical technician looking for work.

They say it would have been nice if they were left some of the Hensley
fortune.

They also say they are Democrats, but Nicholas Portalski says he had another
reason for coming forward.

"The fact that we don't exist," he says. "The fact that we've never been
recognized, and then Cindy has to put such a fine point on it by saying
something that's not true. Recently, again and again. It's just very, very
hurtful."

Kathleen Portalski says she'd like an acknowledgment and an apology.

NPR asked the McCain campaign ‹ specifically, Cindy McCain ‹ to
comment or respond. Neither replied.




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