Mother adored history and would incorporate all the academic disciplines (art, literature, music) into our understanding of it. The Revolutionary War was a favorite time period, given that she was raised in Boston. She made a point of taking us on obligatory visits to the Paul Revere House, the modest gray-shingled structure in the North End of Boston. We filed through and peered at the open hearth in the kitchen where Revere’s family sat, and at the battered tools in his silversmith shop. But we also traveled along with him on his midnight ride, past every Middlesex village and farm, thanks to Mother’s constant repetition of the famous Longfellow poem.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
After dinner or during long rides in the car, she would recite verse after verse, stanza after stanza, in her high, commanding voice. The Fourth of July was not the Fourth of July without the recitation of this, our family poem. As we aged, Mother insisted that we learn the poem by heart—all thirteen long stanzas. We would stand before her in front of the fireplace, backs straight and arms to our sides.
We introduced the verse in strong clear voices:
“‘Paul Revere’s Ride,’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”
And away we would gallop.
The drama was irresistible to our young minds and hearts. A glimmer of light in the belfry height. Paul springs to his saddle as the second light burns. A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark. We, too, heard the crowing of the cock and the barking of the dog. We, too, felt the damp of the Mystic River fog. Ride on, Paul Revere! The hurrying hoofbeats of time were the rhythm of our childhood.
“Wonderful, children, wonderful!” Mother exclaimed as she sat before us, hands keeping pace with the beat, mouthing each treasured word.
Mother introduced us to a different rhythm a little later in our upbringing: the Expert’s Rhythm Drill. Typing was a skill she felt strongly that each one of us should acquire. So, true to form, she enrolled us in lessons to learn the proper method. One summer, it was Bobby’s and my turn.
The Expert’s Rhythm Drill was the preferred approach to typing in that day. It was repetitive, tedious, and often mind-numbing. Yet once the course was finished, we were guaranteed to be proficient.
“Now, class, please turn to the first page in your book.” The instructor’s voice still rings shrill in my ear. “There are three secrets to proficiency in typing: concentration, posture, and the position of the fingers on the keyboard. Look closely at this illustration and see where each finger should be placed. Now focus, sit up straight, and let’s begin.”
With that, Bobby and I started our first lesson.
The teacher assigned each of the students in the class to a typewriter. The machine sat ominously in the center of the desk, with the textbook propped up to the right side. Bobby settled into the seat next to mine.
First we learned to find the “home keys,” A, S, D, F, J, K, L, and the colon/semicolon key. We tapped the first one tentatively, and the levers in the machine briefly swung into contortions. When they settled back into place, a perfect a appeared on the paper in front of us. That seemed easy enough.
Then the instructor launched us into our drills. Right hand only. Left hand only. Back and forth our hands would go. She started us slow and steady, then a little faster, keeping a solid rhythm all the way.
“Remember, backs straight, everyone. Concentration, posture, and position!” she called over the tapping of the keys.
She moved us on to typing sentences. We first typed a line that contained all the letters of the alphabet:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Then she let us loose on the day’s primary exercise. “Type the sentences on the next page,” she commanded.
And the sentences on the next page were something to behold.
I see you are here. Do I not see that you are here? Have you been here a long time? You say that you have been here a long time. How long will you be here at this time? I hope that you will be here a long time. How did I hear that you would be here? They told me that you would be here at this time. Have you been to see them? Do you think you will go to see them? I think I will go to see them soon. When did you hear from them? Let us hear from you soon. May we not hear from you soon? Will you say when we may hear from you? When did you say that we could hear from you? If he saw them he will say so. I think he saw them when they were here. We will hear from him if he saw them . . .
Bobby threw his hands up in frustration.
“Why can’t they just make up their minds that she is here, that she’s gone to see them, and that they’ll hear from them soon!” he grumbled in my direction, as the rest of the class tapped away.
“Don’t read it. Just type it,” I grumbled back, struggling through the sentences myself.
It was not our favorite class. I was bad at typing, but Bobby was hopeless. He was also relentless. Up first thing in the morning, Bobby woke the entire house as he plugged through the drills—clack clack clack clack brnnnng! Clack clack clack clack brnnnng!
But I think the gibberish that the creators of the Expert’s Rhythm Drill tried to pass off as sentences simply kept distracting him from the mission at hand.
Frowzy quacks vex, jump and blight.
“What in the world could that mean?” he barked, looking up at me from one of the sentences.
He read another:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
“You can say that again!” he groaned.
I wrote news of Bobby’s struggles to Jack, who years before had suffered through the Expert’s Rhythm Drill himself. Clearly amused by my description of Red Robert the Rover, the name he used for Bobby, Jack wrote me back:
Dear Jeannie:
I was most pleased to hear from you, and am fully conscious of the honor. Particularly pleasing was the report of your activities in the field of that marvelous machine the typewriter which saves so much time, providing you have a couple of years to spend learning how to use it. As a matter of fact, I was particularly touched by the pitiful picture you painted of that man among men, Red Robert the Rover, and you battling your way out of bed at 8:30 to do your expert’s rhythm drill . . . If you don’t know what the expert’s rhythm drill is, Lean Kathleen will be delighted to show you on her portable.
The Expert’s Rhythm Drill tested Bobby’s famously stubborn will. He could conquer nearly anything, but typing almost did him in. He eventually mastered it. Still, I suspect that for years the sound of those clacking keys and our chirping instructor made special appearances in his nightmares.
But that mattered not to Mother. Bobby had learned to type.
11
Alone with Mother
Whenever I held a newborn babe in my arms, I used to think what I did and what I said to him would have an influence, not only on him, but on all whom he met, not for a day, a month, or a year, but for time and for eternity.
—ROSE FITZGERALD KENNEDY
Mother opened my eyes to the world through the eyes of dolls.
With so many children, it would have been easy and understandable for her to lump us together for all our activities. Yet she did nothing of the sort. She made sure that we had our special time with her and our special time with Dad. And she applied great purpose to determining our individual interests and nudging us forward in our pursuits. With Bobby, she encouraged his fascination with stamps. For Jack, it was books. Eunice was tennis.
Mother, Teddy, and me skating (1939)
AP Images.
And for me, Mother gave me the gift of dolls.
When Dad was ambassador to the Court of St. James, he sent, at Mother’s urging, a letter to his fellow American diplomats around the world asking if they would kindly send two dolls, a boy and a girl, dressed in the native costume of the country where
they were stationed. He told them they were for his ten-year-old daughter, Jean, “who is making a collection.” Dad assured them that he would reimburse the cost of purchasing the dolls and of the postage.
Within weeks, the packages began to arrive—exotic, colorful treasures from every corner of the globe: Shanghai, Calcutta, Caracas, Moscow, Bogotá. Some were almost a foot tall. One set would be outfitted in the traditional native dress of her homeland. The next was ornately attired in gold and sequined ceremonial garments.
Every package took me to a new spot on the world map. I carefully removed each new doll from its tissue wrapping and held it up for inspection. A letter accompanying the doll included interesting facts about its dress and culture. Reading those letters years later, I find it amazing how much care these diplomats, all grown men with weighty occupations, had taken in choosing a doll for a little girl.
William C. Burdett, American consul in Rio de Janeiro, explained in his letter that he had chosen to send two dolls in traditional Bahiana costume because it is “generally considered to be the most characteristic and interesting in Brazil.”
Richard Ford, American consul in Montreal, consulted his friend and well-known French-Canadian historian Emile Vaillancourt on the matter. Ford subsequently wrote to Dad that he was able to obtain from Vaillancourt “the promise of a pair of ‘habitant’ dolls dressed according to the period of Maria Chapdelaine.” Ford continued, “Mr. Vaillancourt explains that it will take some time to dress the dolls, since they aren’t available ready-made so to speak, but he assures me the job will be well done and thoroughly authentic. When completed, they will be delivered to this office for presentation to the Ambassador as a token of great esteem from the Montreal Tercentenary Committee which is even now busily preparing to celebrate the city’s 300th anniversary in 1942.”
Elvin Seibert, American vice-consul at the Consulate General in Bangkok, Thailand, also went to extraordinary lengths:
As it happens, dolls are not much used by Siamese children, and there are no native ones to be found in Bangkok. The costume of Siamese children in general varies so much and is so nondescript and scanty that it was useless to attempt to supply dolls representing a small boy and girl. The Consulate General has therefore had specially made for you two ten-inch figurines representing a Siamese man and woman in the traditional costume, which is much worn up-country and is seen less often in Bangkok.
The letter explained that the five-button coat the man was wearing was called a rajapatan and the woman was wearing the cotton palai and the silk sapai.
And it ended:
In case your daughter may be interested in learning something more about the country from which these dolls come, there are enclosed copies of the Consulate General’s general information sheet, a booklet about Siam prepared by the Consulate General some years ago, and two publications issued by the Siamese Government.
What an incredible education for a young girl. And what enormous generosity from these diplomats, particularly given the time at which they were writing, in the spring and summer of 1939, as war approached the world.
Dad replied to each letter we received:
I assure you that both my daughter and I are grateful for your kindness in having the two dolls made. We greatly appreciate your taking the trouble to have everything done so well. . . .
Jean will be delighted to have [the dolls], rough or not and with or without an exotic aroma. Won’t you, please, let me know what their cost was, as I did not intend in asking for them that they should be a gift.
And:
Please do not for one moment worry about the delay in securing the dolls. With all that has been happening across the world during the past months no one could find fault if the matter had been completely forgotten.
In the end, I received more than two hundred dolls for my collection, thanks to the ingenuity of Mother, the follow-through of Dad, and the graciousness of the diplomats. I first displayed my collection in my upstairs bedroom at Hyannis Port, and then we moved it to special shelves in the basement, where it remains. The thoughtfulness of those strangers from around the world left a lasting impression on me. People of different cultures, religions, governments, and beliefs had all gone out of their way to make one small child happy.
Without question, the dolls on my shelf fueled a bubbling interest in me to one day leave the house and explore the countries they represented. My older brothers and sisters were already heading out on their own, traveling together and with friends across America and throughout Europe—boarding transatlantic liners for England and, from there, fanning off to Switzerland or France. Sometimes they stayed on to study abroad. Mother and Dad cheered them on in their adventures. They felt that travel and exposure to other cultures was the best education of all.
If one of us expressed an interest in a place on the map, Mother would immediately intone, “Why don’t you go?” Certainly she and Dad must have had worries about sending us out on our own. It would have been only natural. But their shared belief in the importance of travel outweighed their apprehension.
One summer, Mother came to my room and asked if I would like to accompany her to Tanglewood the following weekend. Mother often traveled by herself, enjoying a short time of solitude away from the domestic responsibilities of her daily life. So it was a singular honor when she chose one of us to come along.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Mother, I would love to go!” I replied. Though I did not quite know what I was agreeing to, I knew it was something very special.
During those years, Tanglewood was emerging as the center of beautiful music for the Boston and New York arts scene. Originally a large estate named for the tangled trees that covered its grounds, Tanglewood was bequeathed to the Boston Symphony in the 1930s as its official summer home. High in the great Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, just between the villages of Stockbridge and Lenox, Tanglewood was a cool escape for the musicians and the many music lovers who were seeking refuge from the sticky heat of the city. It was an area that naturally drew artists with its rolling landscape and breezy climes. Herman Melville had his most productive years there at his home, Arrowhead, in nearby Pittsfield. Later still, Edith Wharton lived in the Berkshires at her home, the Mount, in Lenox.
Formalities did not matter as much at Tanglewood. The music the symphony chose was lighter fare than at the concert halls in town, and the neckties of the patrons were looser. The musicians performed in a tremendous open-air structure, affectionately called “The Shed,” and concertgoers spread blankets and ate picnics on the lawn under the stars.
Mother loved attending the symphony. For one, she adored classical music. But the symphony also had played a special part in my parents’ life together, starting with their early romance. When Mother and Dad first began courting, Grandpa Fitzgerald was not enthusiastic about the match. Mother was Grandpa’s first child, his “miracle,” the apple of his bright blue eyes. So how could any man ever be good enough for her? Like many fathers before and after him, Grandpa looked on her handsome, young gentleman caller with skepticism. Dad was a bank examiner. This was a world Grandpa knew little about. And most concerning of all for Grandpa: Dad did not have a collar button.
Mother (1938)
Frank Turgeon, Jr., Palm Beach, FL. Kennedy Family Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Prior to World War I, gentlemen wore shirts with detachable collars which they buttoned on each morning to the neck. But after the war, a new style came into fashion. Young men began wearing shirts that had the collars already sewn onto the neck. There were no buttons needed. The older men of society, like Honey Fitz, were appalled. Dad was among the trendsetters, and Grandpa was not pleased.
So Mother and Dad had to court quietly while Grandpa got used to the idea. One of their dates was to the Boston Symphony, where they fell in love with the music, and further in love with each other. I suspect Dad was not wearing a collar button on those outings. Still that did n
ot matter a few years later, when, in 1914, he walked Mother down the aisle after they were wed by the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal William O’Connell. The bride’s father was proudly in attendance.
For the rest of their lives, Dad and Mother enjoyed listening to classical music together. It was always playing throughout the house when they were home. And Mother often went to hear the concerts at Tanglewood during those early first seasons. And now, out of the blue, she was asking me to go.
The Friday following Mother’s invitation, we rose early for the three-hour journey to Western Massachusetts from Hyannis Port. Mother had arranged for Margaret Ambrose, our beloved cook, to make chicken sandwiches for us to eat along the way. She also packed grapes and chocolate chip cookies.
Mother got into the backseat of the car on one side, I on the other. As we motored down the drive and out toward the Bourne Bridge, she leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. It was the first quiet moment for us in a bustling, hectic summer, and we both nodded off to sleep gladly.
I do not remember the specific repertoire the Boston Symphony played while we were at Tanglewood, but I do remember Mother, her back pulling up even straighter than usual when legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky took the stage. I remember how she turned to me after each interval. “Did you enjoy that?” she would ask. And I remember how, under her tutelage and inspired by her delight, I actually heard music for the very first time, in an entirely new way.
Back then, I did not understand why Mother had chosen me for the trip. Now I do. She knew that I was shy, perhaps a little more reserved than the others, and she wanted to spend undivided time with me alone, to find out what interested me, to make sure I was okay. It was a special treat and so thoughtful, particularly since she had eight other children who also needed her attention. And it was the start of a ritual between us, a bond. I returned several times with her to Tanglewood. And then, as I grew up, we went to the opera, ballet, and other cultural events together.
The Nine of Us Page 9