Like her mother before her, Mother darned socks and mended trousers when her family was very young. And for her entire life, she replaced a chair cushion or discarded a dress only if it was badly worn.
She could drive you crazy on the golf course looking for balls that had been hit in the rough. Balls were too expensive to lose. If you had three balls when you began the game, you had better bring three home.
We received presents just two times a year, at Christmas and on our birthdays, and they were never abundant nor extravagant. One Christmas might bring a wind-up toy or a new sweater. We did not get a new bicycle each year like some might imagine. Bicycles were meant to be ridden until they fell to pieces. If a sled had a bad encounter with a tree, we hammered it back together and bound it with twine. Nothing went to waste. Wastefulness was a sin.
Teddy often told the story about when he went away to boarding school and wanted to take his bicycle along with him.
“How many other boys have bicycles at school?” Dad asked him when Teddy announced his plans.
“Only a handful,” Teddy replied.
“I think you can get along without yours for a few months like everyone else,” Dad concluded.
Dad could not bear the idea that his children might ever come across as spoiled or accustomed to special privileges.
“In looking over the monthly statement from Choate, I notice there is a charge of $10.80 for suit pressing for the month of March,” he wrote Jack at school. “It strikes me that this is very high and while I want you to keep looking well, I think that if you spent a little more time picking up your clothes instead of leaving them on the floor, it wouldn’t be necessary to have them pressed so often.”
Mother and Dad insisted that we take care of our rooms, making our beds each morning—“No sloppy corners!”—and picking up our toys and clothes from the floor. As we grew older, our chores extended throughout the house. I spent many afternoons attempting to achieve the unachievable goal of sweeping all the sand off the front porch, while one of the boys was tackling the lawn with the mower. Mother and Dad also sent us out to work in the world. “If you want something, you have to go out and get it,” Dad would say.
Teddy mucked stables at the barn in Osterville, and at Mother’s suggestion, I began to volunteer during the summers at the hospital in Hyannis. I made the beds, changed bedpans, rolled bandages, swept the floors, and helped the nurses with their various responsibilities. It made me want to be a doctor, and I told Dad about my plans. “No, women aren’t doctors,” he responded. “That’s not a suitable profession for a woman.” Those were the days in which we lived, when women were viewed largely as homemakers and were not encouraged to pursue the professions traditionally held by men.
Dad and Mother wanted us to understand our obligations. We were lucky to have the things we had. We were lucky to be healthy, with sharp brains. Not only should we not whine; we also had to give back. We had to use our talents and our minds. We must give our all.
One day, while playing football on the lawn, I got my feelings hurt. My brothers would not pass me the ball. I left the game in a huff, stomped up the front stairs and into the hall, where Mother was gathering her golf clubs and heading out to play.
“Whatever is the matter, Jean?” she asked.
“They aren’t being fair,” I huffed.
Bristling at my whine, she delivered a swift instruction: “Go up to see your father.”
This was not what I wanted to hear. I would rather have gone to my room to sulk alone. But Mother had spoken, so I slunk up the stairs and positioned myself outside my father’s door.
“Dad,” I said, to capture his attention.
Busy at his desk, he peered over the papers he was reading and caught my eye.
“Why aren’t you outside in the game, Jean?”
We could hear the others, below on the lawn, just outside his window.
“They’re not fair,” I burst out. “They won’t pass me the ball. They won’t even look at me. I hate football, and I’m not playing. I quit!”
Jack, me, Mother, Dad, Pat, Bobby, and Eunice, with Teddy in front (At the Cape, 1948)
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Silence. Dad took a minute to let the words fill the room. Not Fair. Hate. Quit. They bounced off the ceiling and landed back down in my ears.
“Jean,” Dad said, “do you see what you’ve done?”
I looked at him. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Your team needs you. They’re counting on you. If you’re not there, they have one fewer person on their side.
“The chances are greater that they will lose,” he continued. “There will be a hole, and someone will throw the ball and make a touchdown. It is very tough to have an extra player on the other side.”
In all my self-pity and anger, it had never occurred to me that I might be letting the others down. Sure, the boys might be the stars of the game, but I was needed to make it even.
“Head back out there, Jean,” Dad said. And there was no question that I would.
“But first,” he said, grinning, “let’s have some butter crunch.”
Had I heard him right?
Dad always claimed he was on a diet. He would make a tremendous scene of turning down dessert every night after supper. A sad look would come over his face as if he were turning down the Crown Jewels.
“Oh no. I’m not touching it!” he would pronounce, raising his hands high to ward off the ice cream and profiteroles that beckoned from the table. Then he would look around the table at each of us, beaming with pride at his self-discipline.
It was quite a show. But we all knew the truth. Upstairs, in his closet, tucked in between his cashmere sweaters, Dad kept a secret stash of Katie Lynch’s Butter Crunch for clandestine late-night snacks.
None of us dared mention it, but we were certain it was there. And now here was Dad, offering it to me. Here was Dad, walking out of the closet and holding out the box of precious candy in my direction.
I pretended to be surprised.
“Where did you get the butter crunch, Daddy?”
Then I hopped up on the edge of his bed and he settled down next to me.
There we sat, together, my generous, princely father and me, nibbling the forbidden treat. The world was fair again.
6
Grandma and Grandpa Fitzgerald
I think there is truth in the idea that “opposites attract,” because it was certainly true in the case of my parents. Father was an extrovert; Mother was innately rather shy and reserved. He would talk with anybody about anything. When she spoke, it was usually directly and to the point.
—ROSE FITZGERALD KENNEDY
My grandma rode to school on a horse. Even as a small child, I found that fact hard to grasp. She would mention it in passing, as if it were just a normal day of any child’s life growing up. To Grandma, it was not an incredible event or an adventure. But to me, it was exotic, fascinating, and glamorous. To think that just a few decades earlier, my grandma, Mary Josephine Hannon, had been a little girl just about my age and size, living in Acton, Massachusetts, a small town north of Boston. She rose for school, just like I did. I am sure she ate breakfast and combed her hair just like I did. But then our morning routines took very different paths.
While I jumped into a car or onto a bicycle for the quick trip to school, I thought of Grandma and how differently she made the same trip. In my imagination, she wore a simple poplin dress that was neatly pressed. Her hair was pinned up atop her head. Grandma would head to the barn, where she nuzzled her mare, gave her a handful of oats, and carefully groomed her chestnut coat and mane. Once saddled up, Grandma would mount the horse. Then, positioned ever so gracefully on the sidesaddle, her two legs swung to one side, she would trot off to school. How was it possible that the world had changed so much since my grandma was a child? But then, her life was so different from the lives of her parents in Ireland, who most likely
had no breakfast or horse at all and instead struggled to find food.
Mary Josephine Hannon, my mother’s mother, was a beauty. Petite, with a trim figure she was very careful to maintain, Grandma had long, wavy dark hair that she wore wrapped up in a bun, as was the fashion of her day. She was elegant and otherworldly. I thought she belonged in another age, in a grand palace in some far-off, exotic land for dark-haired, radiant beings.
Grandma and Grandpa, with Mother at the piano, at the party to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary (Boston, 1939)
Richard Sears. Kennedy Family Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
She and my grandpa John Fitzgerald were devoted to each other. As we often heard, the happiest day of Grandpa’s life was the day he married Grandma. “The first time I met her, I knew,” he said, beaming his signature Grandpa grin. Every time he looked at her, I could tell that Grandpa was still seeing the young, beautiful girl he first clapped eyes on decades before. Dad was enchanted by his mother-in-law as well, and appreciated her calm and grace.
Grandma was a woman of habit, a woman of routine, who had no need or inclination to be out in front. That was Grandpa’s job. Grandma was steadily in the background, managing the household and ensuring that her children were raised well, with ever-broadening minds and deepening faith. She was not boring by any means nor was she stern. The word that comes to mind for Grandma is lovely. Grandma was gentle, she was graceful, she was quiet.
Grandma found her opposite in Grandpa. He adored the limelight that she avoided. He was made for it. He came into this world ready for action.
Grandpa was born in 1863 in the North End of Boston, in a neighborhood inhabited by many other Irish immigrant families of that time. His family lived in the shadow of the Old North Church, where less than a century before two lanterns blazing in a belfry had called a fledgling republic to revolution. Grandpa was born into another turbulent time in America, at the height of the Civil War, which had drawn tens of thousands of his fellow Irishmen to fight for the Union a thousand miles away to the south.
The first air Grandpa inhaled was revolutionary. He learned to walk on the cobblestone streets of history. He explored the same alleyways as Paul Revere and his compatriots. Perhaps he adopted his fervor for life from their spirit. Or perhaps his zeal harkened further back in time, to the dirt roads of Ireland, where his ancestors also had to fight for their freedom.
Whatever the reason, Grandpa simply had a passion for life. He was a joyful, buoyant fellow whom everyone loved. Grandpa had an energy that was at the same time contagious and exhausting. By the time I was born, he was an established legend, both in Boston history and in the history of our family. He was the beloved and respected “Honey Fitz,” former U.S. congressman and Boston’s first Irish-Catholic mayor. “The greatest mayor Boston ever had!” Joe and Jack would pronounce to their college friends whenever Grandpa’s name was mentioned.
An Irish showman by nature, Grandpa was known for bursting into song at a moment’s notice. He often opted to sing a tune rather than deliver a boring speech, a trait the people of Boston greatly appreciated. In fact, they nicknamed him Honey Fitz because of his melodious singing voice. And he found the perfect accompanist in our mother.
Grandma was not fond of politics, so Mother took her place at Grandpa’s side on the campaign trail as a teenager. Grandpa’s signature song was “Sweet Adeline,” a modern tune at the turn of the century that became ever linked to his name. He would sing it at the drop of a hat—often screaming the words so the crowd could hear. Highly accomplished at the piano keyboard, Mother accompanied him lightly as he sang. She kept a natural pace, slowing down or speeding up to match his tempo, pausing momentarily for his impromptu comment or quip. “You’re the flower of my heart, Sweet Adeline . . . My Adeline . . .”
Acting upon his campaign slogan “A bigger, busier, and better Boston,” Grandpa transformed the city and drastically improved its commerce during his two terms in office. Some of Boston’s institutions were born under his watch. The Franklin Park Zoo, Filene’s department store, and the Copley Plaza Hotel opened their doors. Grandpa convinced the Massachusetts state legislature to invest nine million dollars in revitalizing the city’s struggling port.
Yet to the nine of us growing up, his most important contribution to Boston was the towering Christmas tree that lit up Boston Common every December. Always a man of the people, Grandpa was the first mayor in the United States to erect a Christmas tree in a public park so that everyone could enjoy it. We thought it was marvelous, particularly after we learned that he beat New York City to the punch. He would tell the story of Boston’s first Christmas tree at random times throughout the year, but without fail on Christmas Eve, when he painted a picture of the citizens of Boston, citizens of every shape, size, and color, making their way to Boston Common for the event.
They ooh’d and ah’d at the enormous tree that, in an instant, was set aglow. Then Grandpa, taking a deep breath into his broad chest, burst out in song for the crowd. “Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree . . .” Most certainly the snow was falling on that storied evening, and thermoses of hot chocolate were passed among the huddled crowd. At least that is how I imagined it while I listened to Grandpa recount the long-ago evening. As he wound down his story for us, that was Mother’s cue to rise from her seat on our sofa and take her place at the piano in our living room. Grandpa then rose to stand beside her and began to lead all of us in Christmas carols just like he had on that crisp winter night for the people of Boston.
“Why did you do it, Grandpa? Why did you put up the tree?” we would ask him.
“Everyone deserves a Christmas tree,” he replied, simply.
We also relished hearing Grandpa tell of the day in April 1912 when, at the age of forty-nine, he threw out the first pitch for the inaugural game in Fenway Park between his hallowed Boston Red Sox and the New York Highlanders. My brothers were especially keen for him to tell the story again and again and again. For the week before the game, Grandpa would explain, Bostonians had been distressed and distracted with the news that the mighty ocean liner Titanic had gone down in the North Atlantic, its hold jammed with poor Irish immigrants making their way to America. So when Opening Day arrived, the people were ready for a reason to relax. Grandpa and his friends in the “Royal Rooters” fan club were among them. They had been waiting for this day since the first brick was laid a year before.
Opening Day was originally slated for April 17, but agonizingly for Grandpa, it rained for three days and the game was postponed. So when the sun finally rose brightly on Saturday, April 20, Grandpa was primed for the game. In top hat, tie, and a three-piece suit, he stepped to the mound, and a hush of anticipation fell on the twenty-four thousand who had gathered there. He clenched the ball, wound up, and, as he always told it, “threw the perfect pitch!” The crowd roared, the game began, and away Grandpa’s story went, play by play. The Red Sox started out slowly; they could not find their pace, and the Highlanders advanced. But as the innings progressed, the home team got its footing on its new turf and began to rally. In the final inning, the Red Sox squeezed by the Highlanders 7–6. “Victory!” Grandpa bellowed. My brothers, who followed Grandpa’s words so closely they might as well have been in the stands, cheered, “Yes!” Then they pleaded, “Grandpa, tell it again.” They did not have to ask him twice.
Despite Grandpa’s success in life, and the ease with which it seemed to come to him, Mother always reminded us how hard he had worked to achieve what he did. Grandpa was small in stature (just five foot, seven inches tall), and that seemed to only fuel his gumption rather than deter it. He devoured learning from his earliest years. No topic was beyond his interest: poetry, science, language, engineering. It always said something to me about his intellect and versatility that this future mayor first wanted to be a doctor. He was accepted to Harvard Medical School, and I am sure he would have gone on to be a great physician had fate not played a hand w
hen both his parents, still young adults, died within a year of each other. Grandpa dropped out of medical school to take care of his younger brothers.
Maybe it was because he could not finish college that he read everything he could get his hands on, starting with his beloved Boston papers, from which he cut out interesting facts and stories with his penknife so he could pass them on to others to absorb. Yet of all the topics he enjoyed, history—most particularly the history of Boston—was his first love. No one knew it better or could recall it with such a dramatic flair. When any of us visited Boston, he would take us walking along the streets, supplementing our often stiff classroom lectures with his colorful accounts of the living and breathing history all around us. My brothers who attended Harvard were particularly lucky because Grandpa was just down the road and regularly arranged weekend engagements.
Grandpa would meet them, perhaps in the lobby of the Bellevue Hotel, and rush to speak: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people . . .” he would bellow.
And Joe or Jack would immediately jump in to take up the challenge, shouting the words over Grandpa while bursting with laughter:
“ . . . to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation!”
In that way, Grandpa taught them to memorize the Declaration of Independence.
While we were growing up, Grandpa was often in the center of things. Though his visits were not long, he took up more than his share of space in the room. He was there at Thanksgiving in Bronxville, declaring that the turkey was the biggest bird he had ever seen. He was there in Hyannis Port, telling stories on the porch, newspapers scattered around his feet.
The Nine of Us Page 5