The Kennedy Heirs: John, Caroline, and the New Generation

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Ethel laughed. “That’s a good idea,” she said. The two women parted. The next morning, Ethel called Ena. “Well?” she asked. “I thought about it,” Ena said. “And yes, I would be honored to work for you.”

  Despite Ethel’s chipper attitude, Kathleen’s delivery had been hard on her. She’d had a myriad of physical problems during the birth process, including a torn perineum; she was in pain for months afterward. Not many people knew about it; the Kennedys’ family nurse since the 1950s, Luella Hennessey, is the one who told Ena. Though from all accounts, Ena and Ethel never discussed it—Ethel was extremely private when it came to these things. Ena took special care of the young mother during this difficult time, and Ethel would never forget her kindness.

  It was Bobby Kennedy who felt that Ena should finally be reunited with Fina, whom she hadn’t seen since she left Costa Rica. He then arranged for the teenager to come to America in 1954 when she was sixteen, just ten years younger than Ethel. Fina then moved into the Kennedys’ home in Georgetown (this was before Ethel bought Hickory Hill from Jack and Jackie), where she would live with her mother in the servants’ quarters. She and her mom were immediately at odds. “I was holding on to a lot of anger against her over the fact that she’d left me to raise some other woman’s children,” she remembers. “I hadn’t seen her since I was seven. I’d never even heard of the Kennedys. So, when I moved into Georgetown, they were just this family that had stolen my mother. By this time, Mrs. Kennedy had not only Kathleen, but Joe and Bobby, Jr., too. It bothered me so much that when I would go to hug my mother, she would push me away and say, ‘No, no, I don’t like that, Josephina.’ But if a Kennedy wanted to hug her, oh my God. She just loved it.”

  Ethel couldn’t help but notice that Ena was more affectionate to her children than she was to Fina. “It’s not your mother’s fault,” she told the teenager. “It’s yours.” She speculated that Ena felt guilty about having left her daughter in Costa Rica and told Fina, “You make her feel that way every single day of the week.” Consequently, at least the way Ethel saw it, Ena didn’t feel she deserved affection from Fina. It actually made her feel badly about herself every time her daughter asked for a hug, and so she pushed her away. “Stop blaming your mother for wanting to give you a better life,” she told Fina. Fina said it made no sense to her that her mother was the one upset—she should be the one holding a grudge. “The way people feel usually doesn’t make sense,” Ethel told her. “Do you think it was easy for her, leaving you behind while she came to work in America?”

  “But she missed all of my birthdays,” Fina said, tears coming to her eyes.

  Of course she did, and that was a shame, Ethel said. However, she also told her that she and Bobby gave Ena extra money so that the people caring for Fina in Costa Rica could give her a birthday party every year. Ethel even took Ena to the post office to make sure the funds were properly sent. She did this at every birthday for nine years. Upon hearing this, Fina burst into tears. “They must have pocketed the money, Mrs. Kennedy,” Fina said sadly. “I never had one birthday party.”

  Ethel’s heart went out to Fina. However, she held fast that none of this was Ena’s fault. “I want you to work things out with her,” she told her. “It’s very important to me.” Fina promised that she would try.

  “Still, I went through this stage of really hating her,” Fina now says of her mother. “Therefore, I wasn’t an easy teenager. I had a chip on my shoulder.”

  “One memory that sticks out for me,” Fina recalls, “is of the day Mrs. Kennedy asked me, ‘Fina, have you eaten yet? Because dinner is being served in the servants’ dining room.’ I said, ‘Yes, I et already.’ I couldn’t say ‘eat,’ my English was so bad. Mrs. Kennedy corrected me, ‘No, no. You don’t say et, Fina. It’s eat.’ I was so fresh, I said, ‘Well, at least I speak two languages, Mrs. Kennedy. You only speak one.’ My mother was mortified. ‘Fina, don’t you dare talk to Mrs. Kennedy like that,’ she said. ‘Now you apologize to her.’ So I did. ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, looking down at the floor. Mrs. Kennedy said, ‘No, Fina. You look at me when you’re talking to me, not at the floor.’ ‘But Mrs. Kennedy,’ I told her, ‘in Costa Rica when a white lady speaks to a colored girl, you look down when you speak back out of respect.’ Mrs.Kennedy shook her head, no, no, no. ‘You are in America now,’ she said. ‘And in America, you look that person in the eyes, no matter her color. You look that person straight in the eyes, Fina. Do you understand me? Straight in the eyes.’ I never forgot that, and neither did my mom.”

  Fina also fondly remembers being chastised by Bobby Kennedy for coming home late one night after a Cotillion dance in the Grand Ballroom at the Presidential Arms in Washington. “You don’t have a father,” he told her when he caught her sneaking up the stairs to her room, “so that means you’re my responsibility now, and this is much too late for you to be out. Now, go to your room, Joe-sephina, and not another word out of you!” Bobby always called her Joe-sephina, mispronouncing her name, which was actually enunciated with a silent “j.”

  Fina eventually enrolled in a Catholic boarding school in Georgetown. While she would spend the week at school, her weekends were with the Kennedys. Bobby used to drive her back to the school on Monday mornings, Ena in the front seat next to him and Fina in the back.

  At this point, Democrats controlled the Senate and Bobby Kennedy was chief counsel. Because of his work on the McCarthy committee, he’d also been named one of “Ten Outstanding Young Men” of 1954, a list created by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. “Even though he was very distinguished, the nuns were upset about him driving me to school,” Fina recalled. “Oh, it was such a scandal. Here was this white man driving this colored girl and her colored mom to school, and he was a Kennedy! The nuns felt it was morally wrong. I was just one of a handful of colored girls in that school, if there were even that many. I ended up in a fistfight with one of the white students about it. The principal then called me into her office and phoned my mother. ‘Your daughter doesn’t belong here,’ she told her. ‘In fact, we’re taking her to the train station and sending her back to you this very second. So you’d better have someone there to pick her up.’ I was crying when I got off the train in Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy were there to meet me, along with my mom who was so embarrassed she could barely look at me. ‘I’m very sorry that this is the way things are today,’ Mr. Kennedy told me. ‘We have to find a way to change this country, and we will one day. I promise you, all of this will change.’ Mrs. Kennedy took my hand and said, ‘Bobby will help make that change. It won’t always be this way. He’ll see to it.’ Later my mother told me that when the nun called her to tell her I was being expelled, she accused her of sleeping with Mr. Kennedy. It was so embarrassing to her she made me promise never to tell either Mr. or Mrs. Kennedy about it.”

  * * *

  ETHEL HAD BEEN around servants since she was a child and her affluent parents employed a large staff to care for the family in their own stately mansion. The Skakels embraced what would be considered an old-world, even Victorian view of the help in the sense that they believed that those working for them should observe and respect strict British customs and traditions. This sensibility had evolved because Ann Skakel had a friend, Alice Clark, who hailed from England and who employed a staff of dutiful English servants. After she and her husband raised their large family, they decided to return to their home country. However, they didn’t wish to take their staff with them. Some would go back on their own, but most wanted to remain in the States. Ann had been impressed with Alice’s obedient, respectful employees and felt her own paled in comparison. One day, she decided to dismiss everyone working for her and bring in Alice’s entire staff. From that time on, the Skakels would be served by mostly English natives and with the formality particular to the way household workers comported themselves in that country, especially before the war. Though there was obviously a hierarchy at work in the Skakel home, one thing was also certain: the staff was not to be disresp
ected. Ann never browbeat her employees and definitely didn’t let her children lord over them; Ethel would later also never allow her own offspring to mistreat the help.

  Over the years, at Hickory Hill, Ethel’s staff would never be strictly English; it would always be comprised of all nationalities. However, the way they behaved was still old world in nature simply because this was what Ethel had seen growing up. Some would wonder about it, especially as Ethel would speak of “tradition” when talking about what was expected of her staff. “What tradition?” her friend Frank Gifford once wondered. “Weren’t you raised in Connecticut, Ethel?” he asked, kidding her. “Is this how they do things in Connecticut?” Ethel took the ribbing with good humor; she knew the way her help acted was probably more formal than the American norm for the times, but so be it. It was her estate and she would run it as she saw fit. “I’ll have you know my family came from Ireland and Holland, Frank,” she responded, “so put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  Ethel had a little trick for determining a servant’s character, especially if that person was to be in charge of others. It was something she had picked up from her mother. After hiring someone, Ethel would wait a few days and then, at about seven o’clock in the morning, present that person with an enormous slice of chocolate cake she proudly claimed to have baked herself—which, of course, was unlikely. “Please try this,” Ethel would say. “Tell me how it tastes.” If the employee would eat the cake at such an early hour, Ethel would glean from it that this was someone who could maybe be pushed around, not the best person for a management role. She would keep a close eye on that employee. However, if the hire refused the cake, Ethel would conclude that this was someone who could not be intimidated and was probably suitable for a supervisory role. Since Ena was eventually to be responsible for others working with the children at Hickory Hill, she became a prime candidate for testing, the old-fashioned way. One morning, bright and early, Ethel presented her with an enormous slice of chocolate cake. Ena said, “No, Mrs. Kennedy, not now. I’ll save it for later.” Ethel said, “But I insist!” to which Ena responded, “Well, I’m sorry, no.” Ethel wouldn’t let it go. “I really want you to eat this cake, Ena! Now!” Ena threw her shoulders back and declared, “I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna eat no chocolate cake at seven o’clock in the morning! I said I’ll save it for later. Mrs. Kennedy.” Good to know, Ethel thought. Clearly, Ena wasn’t someone who could be bullied, which would serve her well in dealing with insubordinate staff members but, as Ethel would soon learn, maybe not so well in dealing with her.

  Ethel was also raised to understand that household staff members took pride in their work and that they should be allowed to do it in an environment that wasn’t hostile toward them. Still, they knew their place. “Though in a sense we were thought of as part of the family, we still knew what Mrs. Kennedy referred to as our ‘roles,’” said Leah Mason. “For instance, all of us, such as Ena and her daughter, Fina—who was not a staff member but as Ena’s daughter always helped out where she could—Noelle Bombardier, Jinx Hack, Carol Gainer [both of whom were Ethel’s secretaries], Sandy Eiler and Bob Galland [both of whom were “athletic directors,” responsible for the children’s sports activities], maybe ten of us in all, ate in a separate dining room,” said Leah. “If Mrs. Kennedy walked into the room when we were eating, we would all jump from our chairs to attention. She would say a few words. After finishing, she would thank us, apologize for interrupting our dinner, and then take her leave. We would all then sit back down and return to our meals, though we’d all be a little rattled. It was unsettling when she surprised us in our private space.”

  By the time Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Ena and Fina had lived at Hickory Hill for many years. Of course, both were devastated; Fina actually fainted while paying her respects at the Capitol and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital. Despite what was, by far, the darkest time in her life up until this point, Ethel somehow marshaled the resolve to make sure that Ena’s sixtieth birthday was acknowledged on June 18. She felt she owed it to her. After all, by this time Ena had been the family’s governess for almost twenty years and had helped raise all of Ethel’s children.

  On the morning of her birthday, Ethel sent Ena off to do errands with Fina. While she was gone, Ethel instructed the other servants to decorate their dining room with festive red, white, and blue ribbons and balloons. She also had Leah Mason bake a double-chocolate cake, Ena’s favorite. She then gathered all the younger children who happened to be in the house—Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas, and Rory—and told them there was going to be a party for their beloved Ena. They were delighted, so much so that Ethel was pleased she’d had the idea if only to lift their spirits. Later that day, they all gathered in the dining room, along with the rest of the household staff. When Ena walked into the room with Fina, they shouted out “Surprise!” and began to applaud. Ena burst into tears. Ethel embraced her. It’s interesting, though, that she and the kids only stayed for a short time. “The last thing they need is ‘Mrs. Kennedy’ putting a damper on their good time,” Ethel later explained to her friend Elizabeth Stevens, who took her shopping for the day.

  Still, despite their closeness, after Bobby was gone Ethel and Ena often found themselves at odds. “That’s when a difficult phase began for Mrs. Kennedy and my mother,” Fina Harvin recalled. “They really started going at one another.”

  While the servants at Hickory Hill would not be disrespected, they should also not act disrespectful. Insubordination had not been tolerated by Ann Skakel, and it would also not be condoned by Ethel. However, Ena was an outspoken woman who sometimes felt compelled to make her feelings known. She crossed a line one day in 1970.

  Joe, Bobby, and David told Ena that they were angry at their mother for locking them out of the house because she caught them playing Tag on the Roof. This was a game they invented where they’d leap from the top of the barn, to the top of the toolshed to the top of the horse trailer and onto the roofs of any other buildings in sight. Ethel said she was tired of taking the boys to the emergency room with broken limbs. Ena had to agree. However, though she was often mad at the children, too—“She would praise us in English and get mad at us in Spanish,” recalled Ethel’s son Christopher—never would she want them kicked out. She couldn’t imagine where they went when they were told to leave, and she didn’t want to know.

  According to Leah Mason, Ena decided to confront her boss about it on a day Ethel was scheduled to have lunch with Jackie. “If I say something while the other Mrs. Kennedy is there, maybe she’ll side with me and things will go better,” Ena told Leah. The two of them were standing in the pantry, speaking urgently to each other in hushed tones. Leah didn’t think it was a good idea. However, because she was just twenty-one and Ena was sixty-two, Leah felt she should defer to her. When a suspicious Bob Galland peeked into the pantry and asked, “What are you two whispering about back here?” Ena waved a hand at him and said, “Shoo! Mind your own business.” After he backed off, Leah said, “Please be careful, Mimi,” using Ena’s nickname. “Mrs. Kennedy isn’t going to like this one bit. I’m afraid of what she’ll do.” Ena nodded. “Don’t worry about me,” she said confidently. “I know how to handle Mrs. Kennedy.”

  That afternoon, Ena was frying plantains as she did most every day, when she turned around and said to Ethel, “I’ve been holding this in, Mrs. Kennedy, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t anymore. It’s not good to lock the boys out of the house. I’m afraid that one day they will hate you for it. Especially David. He’s only fifteen.” She looked to Jackie for support, but apparently, Jackie knew her place—and it wasn’t to align herself with a household employee’s negative opinion of Ethel’s parenting skills. Instead, the former First Lady just sat quietly with an amused look on her face, as if waiting for the show to begin—which took only about ten seconds.

  Ethel, who was drinking coffee, almost did a spit-take. She jumped out of her chair and demanded to
know how Ena could be so insubordinate, especially given everything she’d done for her and Fina. Ena turned down the heat on the frying pan and then whirled around to face Ethel. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kennedy,” she said, “but I have to speak my mind.”

  “Oh really? Since when?” Ethel demanded to know. “Since when do you have to speak your mind?” The argument escalated from there, with Ethel being particularly confrontational, almost as if trying to save face in front of Jackie. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” she asked the governess. Finally, it ended with Ena exclaiming, “I quit.” To which Ethel responded, “Good. Then pack your things and get the heck out of here. I don’t need you, and neither do my kids.” Ena stomped out of the kitchen and went to her room on the third floor, next to the former nursery, where she slept in a narrow twin bed surrounded by framed photos of saints of all races and colors and an enormous painting hanging over her headboard of Jesus on the cross.

  The next day, when Ethel woke up, Ena was gone. “‘Fine and good riddance’ was Ethel’s response,” recalled Leah Mason. “‘Can you imagine what would happen if I let her get away with that kind of impertinence? Why, it would be complete anarchy around here.’ We all knew she was disappointed with Ena. After twenty years, she was used to Ena speaking out of turn, but doing so in front of Jackie was really unacceptable. Mrs. Kennedy told me to call the Kelly Girl temporary agency and have them send someone over. ‘Just make sure she’s a nice, quiet woman who doesn’t have a burr under her saddle,’ she told me. I decided to hold off on that task, though. It actually wasn’t even my job to do such a thing, it was someone else’s. So I just waited. I had a feeling.”

  Sure enough, two days later when Ethel woke up and came down to the kitchen she found Ena preparing Cream of Wheat for breakfast for the children. Ethel sat down. “I guess this means you’re back?” she asked. Ena answered that she supposed so and then asked Ethel if she wanted some coffee. Staring hard at her, Ethel said yes. Ena walked over, poured hot coffee into Ethel’s cup, and then turned around and went back to her work. Ethel said she was surprised by Ena’s actions and that, considering how long she’d been at Hickory Hill, she couldn’t understand why she’d ever be so outspoken in front of company—and especially in front of Jackie. “Here’s an idea, Ena,” she told her. “Why not have a private thought for once in your life?” She finished her reprimand by acknowledging something everyone working there knew about life at Hickory Hill, whether they wished to recognize it or not: a hierarchy of privilege existed and each of them had a role in it. Or as Ethel put it, “Everyone who works here has a part to play, Ena. Know your part.”