Kennedy Wives: Triumph and Tragedy in America's Most Public Family Read Online Free Page B
Author: David Batcher Amber Hunt, David Batcher
Rose took an auxiliary role. This happened more frequently after 1928, when Joe bought the vacation home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, that would, in later years, become the nucleus of the cluster of homes that came to be known as the Kennedy compound. “It was really quite a lot of fun to be at the dinner table with them,” remembered nurse Luella Hennessey, who would join the family in 1937 and serve the wider family off and on in some capacity for decades.
Mr. Kennedy was the chairman or moderator of the discussions . . .Mrs. Kennedy sort of led the discussion on feminine and cultural things. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy wanted the children to have a well rounded education, and she often discussed fashion and music and literature, and left it to her husband to handle the diplomatic and government discussions.
Eunice, noting Rose’s deference when Joe was at home, put it succinctly: “My mother was more articulate with everything when he wasn’t there.”
Arriving in 1929, the Kennedys found Bronxville hospitable. Their mansion sat on six acres, walking distance from the Bronxville School the daughters attended; Joe Jr., Jack, and eventually Bobby could ride the bus to the Riverdale Country Day school. The nearby golf course was open to Catholics, and Joe and Rose both enjoyed playing. In the summertime, the family would decamp to Hyannis Port, as they would for much of the rest of the decade.
Joe Jr. and Jack both spent much of the 1930s away at school, and Rose did her best to monitor their health and grades from Bronxville. She was not a mother who hesitated to be in touch with principals and teachers. “The fact has come to my attention that some of the boys at Choate do not seem to know how to write a letter correctly or how to address it,” Rose wrote to one of Jack’s teachers in 1932. “It seems to me it would be a very practical idea and a very useful one if a short period could be given to demonstrating the different forms.”
On another occasion, the same teacher heard from Rose ,
I understood from Jack’s letter than he is much better and he also said something about eating in the Tuck Shop in order to get “built up.” I was a lot worried at that suggestion because the Tuck Shop usually means sweets to me, and Jack has no discretion, in fact he has never eaten enough vegetables to satisfy me. I do not want to bother you, but will someone please investigate this matter a little?
At the age of forty-one, Rose had her last child. Edward Moore Kennedy, nicknamed Teddy, was born on February 22, 1932. Of all the Kennedy men, he would come to most openly express his affection for and admiration of his mother. As the youngest child of the family, he would benefit from more one-on-one time with Rose than any of the older children: His returns home from boarding school would be to Rose the empty nester, rather than to a household bustling with children and household staff. He called Rose “our Pied Piper into the world of ideas,” citing her leadership of their dinner conversations: “geography one night, the front-page headlines the next.”
By the end of 1931, Joe Kennedy was out of the movie business and no longer trading stocks. He’d been perspicacious enough to recognize, as early as 1923, that the market was overvalued, and in the wake of the 1929 crash, he actually made money via short sales. As a result, the Great Depression was something the Kennedys read about in the newspapers, rather than experienced as much of a daily reality. In 1933, at the depth of the Depression, Joe even bought a third home, this time in Palm Beach. He bought the mansion, a white Spanish-style villa with red tile roof,pool, tennis courts, and large stretch of private beach, for $100,000. Even in 1933 dollars, it was a steal.
Joe’s money was safe, but the pessimist in him suspected that the sun might be setting on capitalism. If financial power was about to lose its meaning, he figured, the
Mr. Kennedy was the chairman or moderator of the discussions . . .Mrs. Kennedy sort of led the discussion on feminine and cultural things. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy wanted the children to have a well rounded education, and she often discussed fashion and music and literature, and left it to her husband to handle the diplomatic and government discussions.
Eunice, noting Rose’s deference when Joe was at home, put it succinctly: “My mother was more articulate with everything when he wasn’t there.”
Arriving in 1929, the Kennedys found Bronxville hospitable. Their mansion sat on six acres, walking distance from the Bronxville School the daughters attended; Joe Jr., Jack, and eventually Bobby could ride the bus to the Riverdale Country Day school. The nearby golf course was open to Catholics, and Joe and Rose both enjoyed playing. In the summertime, the family would decamp to Hyannis Port, as they would for much of the rest of the decade.
Joe Jr. and Jack both spent much of the 1930s away at school, and Rose did her best to monitor their health and grades from Bronxville. She was not a mother who hesitated to be in touch with principals and teachers. “The fact has come to my attention that some of the boys at Choate do not seem to know how to write a letter correctly or how to address it,” Rose wrote to one of Jack’s teachers in 1932. “It seems to me it would be a very practical idea and a very useful one if a short period could be given to demonstrating the different forms.”
On another occasion, the same teacher heard from Rose ,
I understood from Jack’s letter than he is much better and he also said something about eating in the Tuck Shop in order to get “built up.” I was a lot worried at that suggestion because the Tuck Shop usually means sweets to me, and Jack has no discretion, in fact he has never eaten enough vegetables to satisfy me. I do not want to bother you, but will someone please investigate this matter a little?
At the age of forty-one, Rose had her last child. Edward Moore Kennedy, nicknamed Teddy, was born on February 22, 1932. Of all the Kennedy men, he would come to most openly express his affection for and admiration of his mother. As the youngest child of the family, he would benefit from more one-on-one time with Rose than any of the older children: His returns home from boarding school would be to Rose the empty nester, rather than to a household bustling with children and household staff. He called Rose “our Pied Piper into the world of ideas,” citing her leadership of their dinner conversations: “geography one night, the front-page headlines the next.”
By the end of 1931, Joe Kennedy was out of the movie business and no longer trading stocks. He’d been perspicacious enough to recognize, as early as 1923, that the market was overvalued, and in the wake of the 1929 crash, he actually made money via short sales. As a result, the Great Depression was something the Kennedys read about in the newspapers, rather than experienced as much of a daily reality. In 1933, at the depth of the Depression, Joe even bought a third home, this time in Palm Beach. He bought the mansion, a white Spanish-style villa with red tile roof,pool, tennis courts, and large stretch of private beach, for $100,000. Even in 1933 dollars, it was a steal.
Joe’s money was safe, but the pessimist in him suspected that the sun might be setting on capitalism. If financial power was about to lose its meaning, he figured, the
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