McCain calls herself an "only child," but family tree includes 2 half-sisters

WASHINGTON — When Cindy McCain talks about growing up, she usually refers to herself as an "only child," a phrase that ignores the existence of her half-sisters.

"It's terribly painful," Kathleen Hensley Portalski said Tuesday. "It is as if she is the 'real' daughter. I am also a real daughter."

Portalski and McCain are children of Jim Hensley, the Arizona businessman who founded one of the largest beer distributorships in the nation. Portalski, 65, is the product of Hensley's first marriage in the 1930s to Mary Jeanne Parks. Hensley divorced Parks for Marguerite "Smitty" Johnson, whom he met at a West Virginia hospital in World War II and married in 1945. Cindy was born nine years later.

The half-sisters had little contact growing up and have not spoken since Hensley's funeral in 2000. In his will, he left $10,000 to his older daughter; Cindy inherited her father's multimillion-dollar fortune.

Portalski said she stood quietly by for decades while her father lavished attention on his second family. But in the past few months — with Cindy McCain's glowing childhood memories and repeated references to being her father's only child — it became too much. "I was his family, too," she said from her home in Phoenix. "I saw him at Christmas and I spent my birthdays with him."

There's more: Cindy McCain has another half-sister. Before her marriage to Hensley, Johnson had a daughter, Dixie Burd, by a previous relationship. Burd, who is much older than Cindy, could not be reached for comment.

The McCain campaign has been tight-lipped about the expanded family tree: "Mrs. McCain was raised as the only child of Jim and Marguerite Hensley, and there was no familiar relationship with any other sibling," it said in a statement.

The saga went public after Cindy McCain talked about her childhood in an NPR interview. Portalski's son, Nicholas, contacted the network to clarify the family history and his mother's feelings about being overlooked. "I'm upset," she told NPR. "I'm angry. It makes me feel like a nonperson, kind of."

Money has exacerbated the family tensions. The multimillionaire Hensley only occasionally saw his older daughter but gave Portalski and her children money and college tuition. But when he died eight years ago, Hensley bequeathed Cindy the majority share of his company. Andy McCain, John's stepson from his first marriage, is now the chief financial officer. Portalski got no share of the business, and support to her family was cut off.

"It doesn't make any kind of sense at all," Portalski said. "He was generous over the years when I was growing up, so it doesn't compute that he would do that; that he would leave all of us out. He paid for college for two of my kids. He gave us yearly gifts that were generous, allowed for a down payment on a home. I felt shock and disbelief. I just wish I could ask him, 'Why?' "

All Portalski said she wants is for the McCains to apologize and acknowledge her branch of the family tree. "He was my father, too. I don't know why even now he cannot be a part of my life."