The daughter of storied Boston mayor John (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald and wife of millionaire investor Joseph P. Kennedy, Rose strove to imbue her nine children with social grace, confidence and a love of learning. But it was her role as the “glue” that held her family together through times of crisis that made her an icon. “She sustained us in the saddest times – by her faith in God, which was the greatest gift she gave us – and by the strength of her character, which was a combination of the sweetest gentleness and the most tempered steel,” Senator Kennedy, Rose’s only surviving son, told the crowd, which included three generations of Kennedy relatives (more than 100 in all), senators, congressmen and cabinet members. Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law presided over the Roman Catholic ceremony in the same church where Rose was baptized in 1890. He praised her as “a woman of great strength and deep faith,” and read a message from President Clinton and a blessing from Pope John Paul II as many wept quietly.
Thousands thronged the sidewalks outside the church before the ceremony, pressing for clear sightlines as family members arrived in buses and limousines from Hyannisport. But the mood was respectful – even Kennedy in-law Arnold Schwarzenegger drew only a quickly muted rustle – suggesting many had come less to gawk at the famous than to mourn a woman whose fortunes often mirrored those of her country. As Cardinal Law put it: “Few lives have been so intertwined with the joys and sorrows of our nation’s life as have hers.”
PHOTOS: Family portrait (1938); JFK Jr. speaks at Rose’s funeral. Other grandchildren: Maria Shriver (left), Sydney Lawford McKelvy, Joseph Kennedy II, William Kennedy Smith, and Edward Kennedy Jr.
