“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” These powerful words of St. Francis capture how my brother Bob lived his life. His love for animals was simply a microcosm of how he loved the people around him. “You have a lot on the ball and you have a personality that will make friends, so by all means hop in there and meet everybody,” Dad once wrote to him. And that was what Bobby always did. Storekeepers in the village, children at school, the visitors who dropped by to see Mother and Dad—Bobby had a way with all of them.
Two of his favorite friends were the sons of a lovely woman who lived in Hyannis Port village and came to help in our house. The moment they entered the drive, Bobby was out of the house and, in a flash, the three of them were off, playing football on the lawn or pounding the basketball on the pavement outside the garage.
These were the boy playmates Bobby had longed for, and their friendship was fast and easy. Only looking back now does it occur to me how uncommon it was during that time in American history for children of different races to play together. It was never noted or even noticed in our house, or by Bobby.
When rainy days forced Bobby indoors, he explored the world through his extensive stamp collection. Ever astute, Mother recognized that Bobby was curious about other people and lands at an early age, so when he was about nine or ten, she presented him with an album to collect stamps and encouraged him in the pursuit.
Nearly every week, Mother and Dad would receive correspondence from across the nation and around the globe: postcards from friends on holiday in Europe; letters from businessmen working in Chicago and Washington, DC; parcels from shopkeepers in London and Paris. Each delivery carried on it a small treasure for Bobby: a stamp. Often they were the standard size, with profiles of bejeweled princesses, bearded kings in military uniforms, and other important people who ruled distant lands. But sometimes the stamps were larger, more colorful, and mystifying: a green upside-down triangle from Latvia; a warrior from Papua New Guinea aiming his bow and arrow; determined American workers overcoming the Great Depression; exotic birds from the Orient perched on equally exotic trees.
After removing the important contents, Mother and Dad turned each empty envelope over to Bobby. He would carefully tear off the corner that held the stamp and place it in a dish of warm water. There the stamp would sit, sometimes for hours, until its glue started to slowly dissolve and its corners began to peel up from the paper.
Bobby was anything but patient in everyday life, yet he could wait for days if he had to for his stamps. He had learned from experience that ripping a stamp off the envelope too early meant ripping the stamp in two. By placing it in water, however, and practicing patience, the stamp would eventually wrest free from its paper and float to the top of the dish. Bobby would remove it with tweezers and place it on newspaper to dry. Only once all the dampness was gone would he dare to pick it up with his fingers and paste it in his stamp album. Magnifying glass to his eye, he then examined each stamp intensely.
“Jeannikins, look! This one is about the founding of Australia. They created it for the one hundred fiftieth anniversary.” “Look at this pink one, with the elephant, from Vietnam!”
Inevitably he would pull a book from the nursery shelves to find out more about Australia, Vietnam, India, Egypt, Brazil, or whatever country his stamp introduced him to. In this way, my brother Bob spent his long afternoons traversing countries and continents, while outside, the rain came down.
At the beginning of Bobby’s stamp-collecting career, in the early 1930s, Dad was often in Washington, where he served as President Roosevelt’s first chairman of the newly formed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Those were somber times in our nation’s history. America was just pulling herself out of the Great Depression set off by the stock market crash of 1929. Dad’s knowledge of the financial markets was critical to getting the SEC, a revolutionary new regulatory body, off the ground.
Still, between his long, heady hours at work, Dad found a moment to mention to President Roosevelt Bobby’s new interest in stamp collecting. Roosevelt was himself an avid collector, and he found a moment as well to dictate a note to Bobby encouraging him in his new hobby. Kindly, the president sent my brother some special stamps and a small album to keep them in, too.
“Perhaps sometime when you are in Washington you will come in and let me show you my collection,” the president wrote.
The letter from the president arrived at Hyannis Port, stamped and addressed to Bobby. It was the source of great excitement, and Bobby immediately set out to write the president back.
“I liked the stamps you sent me very much and the little book is very useful,” Bobby responded in his sprawling fourth-grade cursive. “I am just starting my collection and it would be great fun to see yours which mother says you have had for a long time.”
Letters between President Roosevelt and Bobby
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
Letters between President Roosevelt and Bobby
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
We eventually did go to the White House, hair plastered in place, patent leather shoes shined, faces scrubbed. We girls wore our Sunday dresses; the boys, their suits and ties. Bobby had his stamp collection tucked tightly beneath his arm.
Letters between President Roosevelt and Bobby
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
The president’s secretary led us into the Oval Office, and President Roosevelt, sitting in his wheelchair, greeted us there. “Which is the oldest? You are all so big!”
He asked each of us our name and was curious about what we were learning at school. Then he turned to Bob.
“Mr. President, I brought my stamp collection for you to see,” Bobby announced.
President Roosevelt was delighted. The two of them moved to the large desk, where the leader of the free world brought out his stamp collection, too. There they lingered, the president and the boy, necks craned over their albums. The rest of us looked on quietly as they passed a magnifying glass between them and crossed the globe together.
Several years later, Bobby would be old enough to set off by himself to the lands he had explored through his stamps. He ventured out on a long tour of South America, discovering for the first time countries and peoples he would return to visit many years later as a U.S. senator. At one of the outdoor markets, Bobby stopped at a booth and spied what he felt was the ideal gift for me. He purchased it, wrapped it securely in tissue paper, and packed it away in his suitcase for the long trip back to America.
Once home in Bronxville, after unpacking his bags and putting his clothes away upstairs, Bobby descended to the living room, where we were all gathered to hear about his adventures. He held an enormous mound of tissue paper in his hand.
Bobby, Mother, and Pat (Hyannis Port, 1942)
John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Kennedy Family Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
“Jean, I found the perfect present for you,” Bobby declared.
I was thrilled to be singled out. I had teased him endlessly that he often brought my sisters gifts from his travels, but never one for me. Now here one was.
He handed me the tissue paper, and I began, eagerly, but carefully, to unwrap it. Layer after layer I peeled back, searching for the surprise inside. I peeled and peeled as the others looked over my shoulder. On about the twentieth layer, I finally uncovered my prize: a tiny little jewel tucked away in the crevices of the tissue. It was the smallest stone I had ever seen, no bigger than the head of a pin. It was a pale blue, I believe, but you would have needed a microscope to be sure.
I looked up at Bobby, and he grinned back at me. Bobby had this way about him: you did not know if he was putting you on or if he was dead serious. Was this gift a joke or was he truly excited? His smile seemed so sincere, so eager to please, but then
there was that slight glint in his eye. I did not quite know, and I was not going to take the chance of hurting his feelings.
“Oh, it’s beautiful!” I exclaimed.
“I’m glad you like it. I’m so glad. They don’t have many of these down there. Isn’t it remarkable?” Bobby replied. “Isn’t it beautiful, Mother? Eunice? What do you think?” He called everyone over for a viewing.
They stood in a circle around me to inspect the gift. First they saw nothing, until I pointed down and they focused on the speck of a jewel. They did not know if Bobby was for real, either, but they, too, were not going to risk hurting his feelings.
“It’s lovely, Bobby!” Pat said. “Just right for Jean.”
“I thought you’d think so, Pat.”
Then he stopped. Looking down again at the jewel, his brow furrowed, Bobby considered what he saw.
“Hmmm. It might be just a little small. Mother, maybe you can help me dress it up?”
Dress it up? What was Bobby driving at? Mother understood perfectly what he meant, and the soft spot in her heart for Bobby grew even softer. She was very taken by the fact that he had thought to bring me a present, and she wanted to make sure I wore it.
“Of course I will, Bobby,” she assured him. “Let’s go into town and see what the jeweler can do.”
So the very next day the two of them set off, mother and son, to the jewelry shop. The bespectacled gentleman behind the glass counter excavated the jewel from its paper, lifted it with a tweezer, and placed it, with a flourish, onto a black velvet cloth. Lips pursed in concentration, he intently inspected Bobby’s find through his highest-powered magnifier. Ever so seriously, he raised his head. “Mrs. Kennedy, I believe I have the perfect setting for this gem,” he pronounced.
With alacrity and focus, the jeweler conveyed several gorgeous stones from his case: two substantial diamonds, two good-size sapphires, and several aquamarines. He positioned them on the velvet around Bobby’s minuscule stone. “This would make an absolutely exquisite brooch,” the gentleman said.
Mother quickly calculated the cost in her head. “Don’t you have something slightly simpler?” she inquired.
“Oh, Mother,” Bobby pleaded, sensing her hesitation. “I really do think this is perfect for Jean. These other jewels set hers off just right.”
Mother looked into Bobby’s face and caved. She told the man to set the jewel. And since she had gone that far already, she told him to set two.
“A brooch always looks better with a companion,” she explained to Bobby.
Several weeks later, Bobby and Mother returned to the shop and collected the gift. The brooches were beautiful, Bobby’s minuscule blue treasure tucked in between its glamorous larger cousins. Mother paid the man, and they returned to the house, Bobby carrying the parcel. For the second time that month, he proudly presented me with a gift.
“For you,” he proclaimed.
I opened the box and inhaled at the sight. No smaller jewel had ever received such lavish treatment. Like the parable of the loaves and fishes, Bobby had taken a stone of no consequence or size and made it multiply—with an enormous assist from Mother and her bank account. He beamed, and I beamed back.
A few months on, back at the house in Bronxville, we were preparing for Christmas when a gigantic package arrived at the door addressed to me. It was from Bobby, who was still away at boarding school. Though I should have put it under the tree and waited until Christmas morning to open it, the excitement was too much. With Mother and my sisters at my side, I ripped the paper off. It was a jewelry box, the largest one I had ever seen, made of glossy black lacquer and inlaid with an intricate pattern of intertwined flowers.
I opened the lid. Resting on the creamy velvet lining inside was a handwritten note from my older brother. It was a simple message, but it made all of us wonder again: had he been putting us on the entire time?
Jean:
This box is to keep your jewel safe.
Merry Christmas.
Love, Bobby.
None of us could resist that boy.
9
On the Town with Dad
For parents who have or expect to have a sizeable family, my strong advice would be to work hardest on the eldest, for in the direction they go the others are likely to follow.
—ROSE FITZGERALD KENNEDY
Birds of a feather flock together. That’s how the saying goes. And that’s how we Kennedys went.
Every day, we fanned out across our world. We would go on foot, grab our bikes, or pile in the car. To the shore, to church, to the tennis court. In twos, threes, fours, or fives, but very rarely alone. A brother or sister was always along, urging us on, prodding us to run faster. “Come on, Jeannie, pick it up!”
Mother and Dad made sure it was so. They entrusted us to one another. It was their greatest gift to the nine of us. No matter how far away we were from one another, Mother made certain that we were always connected. When she or Dad traveled, they religiously wrote letters to each other and to every one of us, asking questions about the happenings at home. And we responded with our daily news.
Mother was a consistent and disciplined letter writer. If someone invited her for tea one day, she wrote a letter of thanks the next. If someone suffered a death in the family, she penned a letter of condolence immediately after hearing the news. Each day, after attending Mass and finishing breakfast, Mother retired to her room for her daily correspondence. It was very important to her, and she made certain that we adopted the same good habits. Each of us had stationery and pens for the job. She taught us the proper etiquette, the proper salutations, and the proper valedictions. If we failed to thank someone, we heard from Mother or Dad:
“Why didn’t you drop Margaret a little note and thank her for the present she sent you, rather than for me to do it for I am sure she would love to hear from you and it would be very good practice,” Dad wrote to a ten-year-old Bobby.
We even sent thank-you letters to Santa Claus.
In fact, even before we could actually write, we were “writing.” In the nursery, we asked for help from our nurses, who listened as we recited our letters and took down every word in their lovely Palmer Method penmanship.
“Dear Daddy,” began one of Teddy’s letters to our dad when he was traveling for business.
Everybody in the world is good but Jeannie. Jean is good sometimes too. Bobby sold some rabbits and when you come home you’ll see Kikoo is home now. When are you going to telephone me again? Eddie [Moore, Dad’s secretary and Teddy’s godfather] took me to see the fishes, but the place wasn’t open, so we fed the pigeons and they came right near me. That’s all. Love . . .
The correspondence was signed at the bottom in a scratchy, four-year-old’s handwriting: “teddy.”
As we grew up and reached the age to go away to boarding school, Mother insisted that we call home every Sunday to report in. But making a long-distance phone call in those days was very costly, an enormous extravagance, particularly when multiple children were involved. So Mother and Dad kept the calls very short, just long enough for them to hear our voices and confirm that we were not ill or distressed. “Hello Mother, it’s Jean!” I called out into the crackling receiver. “Hello, Jean, dear, how are you?”
The smaller, more minute, day-to-day details of our lives (our wins at sports, marks in class, friends we met) were saved for our letters, which we wrote weekly without fail.
“Dear Mother” or “Dear Daddy” our letters dutifully began, followed by reports from school and questions about home.
Dear Daddy, I am sorry I could not speak to you on the telephone last Sunday. We had a Halloween party at school. It was swell. We had a hockey game at school Tuesday. We won and I was on the team . . . Loads of Love, Jean.
Once she finished reading each letter, Mother would make a copy of it with a mimeograph machine and share it with the rest of the family. If we were home, she would hand it to us to read. If we were away at school, we received it in the
mail. In this way, Mother let each of us know how the others were faring. It was her way of making sure that we never felt too far from one another, even if we were halfway around the globe.
Mother and Dad believed that if you set your eldest children on the straight and narrow, the others would fall in line. When Teddy was born, Jack wrote Mother a letter from his school in Connecticut, asking if he could be godfather to him just as Joe was godfather to me. Mother and Dad enthusiastically agreed. In their minds, it only made sense. The older ones would feel responsible to us, and we would look up to them.
Rather than scolding one of us for bad manners, bad posture, bad grammar, or bad form, Mother enlisted a brother or sister to do so. She understood that we were much more likely to listen to our siblings than to our parents.
One day, hoping to look glamorous, I globbed cherry lipstick on my lips. Well, I was aiming for my lips, but in fact hit above and below the lips as well. I looked like a ten-year-old clown.
Mother spied me coming down the stairs. She pulled Bobby aside.
“Bobby, look at Jean,” she said, making sure I could not overhear. “Perhaps you could remind her very nicely that lipstick does not go all over the face.”
My brother met me in the hall.
“Going a little overboard with those lips, aren’t you?” he said as he passed.
Eunice, Dad, Kick, and Pat (New York, 1940)
Bert Morgan/Getty Images.
I immediately raced to the bathroom, found a tissue, and wiped it off.
If Mother had said it, I would have been angry. When my big brother Bobby said it, I paid attention. He represented a constituency of boys in my future who might never speak to me again if I kept wearing lipstick that way. Who knew how many of his friends might ask me out one day, as long as I didn’t look like I was joining the circus.
Our responsibility to one another extended to outings as well. On special Sundays in Bronxville, when everyone was home from school for a holiday or a weekend visit, Dad would make an announcement: we were going for a drive into the city. Before piling us into two cars for the trip (we could not all squeeze into one), he would gather us together for our specific assignments:
The Nine of Us Page 7