After her brother’s death, Caroline Kennedy would bundle herself up in a warm fleece jacket, her head in a favorite colorful scarf that had once belonged to her mother, and retreat to Mummy’s Wharf so that she could be alone with her grief, trying to reason it all out. Ed would join her sometimes and the two would talk, but then he would inevitably turn around after about fifteen minutes and make his way back up to the main house at Red Gate, leaving his wife alone with her thoughts.
The Riches of Marriage
Caroline had always known that Mae Schlossberg had concerns about her son, Ed, marrying her. Mae brought it up several times, saying she was worried about their communication skills. Caroline didn’t take it too seriously; she felt Mae was entitled to her opinion and she would work it out herself with her husband when the time presented itself. When Jackie heard about it, she didn’t necessarily agree with Mae. “Well, it’s been said that silence is one of the great arts of conversation,” she observed, quoting Cicero. Jackie did agree with Mae, though, that there could be problems ahead for Caroline, but for a different reason. Ed just wasn’t stimulating enough, at least in Jackie’s view. She found him pedantic, staid, and a little old for his age. Some people who knew about her critical opinion of him—like her sister, Lee—believed that what Jackie actually felt, at her core, was that Ed just wasn’t “good enough” for her daughter.
Janet Auchincloss’s longtime assistant, Adora Rule, says she was at Janet’s home, Hammersmith Farm, tending to Janet’s needs in the summer of 1985 when Jackie and Caroline came to visit. They became engaged in an emotional conversation about Ed over breakfast one morning. “Jackie and Caroline were in the kitchen with me, Janet, and Margaret Kearney, who had been Janet’s late husband Hugh Auchincloss’s personal secretary, when the subject turned to Ed. Jackie said she was happy to have Caroline date him, but to marry him? No.”
“I want your life to be a great adventure, like mine has been,” Jackie told Caroline, this according to what Adora recalled. “I have had such a great life, Caroline,” Jackie said, “and you deserve one, too.”
“But Ed can do that for me,” Caroline protested.
“No,” Jackie said, shaking her head. “He’s just not that exciting, Caroline. He’s a homebody. Why, you’re going to live in New York for the rest of your life,” she exclaimed with a shudder. Jackie said she wanted Caroline to travel more and meet all sorts of “new and exciting men,” just as she had done when she was her age.
Certainly, Jackie did have a spectacular life, but if one analyzes it, she actually didn’t have a lot of “new and exciting men.” She’d had Caroline’s father, of course, who went from senator to President, making Jackie a First Lady, obviously a once-in-a-lifetime experience. She’d also had the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis, a marriage that was a whirlwind for her. Then she went right to Maurice Tempelsman, a diamond merchant who was safe and easy, treated her well, and gave her a sense of security, though not much stimulation. However, she was in her forties by the time Maurice came along, and she was ready to settle into a more “sensible” lifestyle. Caroline was only twenty-seven. Jackie didn’t want the history of her romantic trajectory to be a straight shot to Maurice without having the experience of at least a Jack and an Ari along the way. “Ed’s just not … interesting,” she repeated. “I mean, do you really find him so?” she asked her daughter.
“Well, I’ve never been interesting to anybody, either,” Caroline said glumly. She dropped her eyes, not elucidating further. Though Jackie didn’t seem surprised to hear such self-deprecation, the other women were taken aback. “But that’s just not true, dear,” Margaret Kearney said. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Suddenly, I saw that there was another problem at the root of things, and that was Caroline’s lack of self-esteem,” recalled Adora Rule. “From the way Jackie then spoke to her, I realized that this was nothing new, that this had been an issue in the past. She told Caroline that she was interesting and that she had so much to offer. ‘Someday, people will brag that they even knew you,’ she said.
“I suddenly understood that it must have been hard for Caroline to live in her mother’s shadow, to be the only daughter of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. What a heavy load that must have been for a young girl. Finally, Caroline just got up and rushed away, crying. The episode was brief, but I’d never previously witnessed anything like it between mother and daughter, and believe me, I had been around them a lot. After Caroline left, it was just me, Jackie, Janet, and Margaret.”
“All I want is for her to have a thrilling life,” Jackie said. “Is that so wrong?”
“That’s the wish of most mothers, isn’t it?” Margaret asked.
“I certainly hope not,” Janet answered. “The riches of marriage are not in its thrills,” she concluded. She delivered the pithy aphorism in the way Janet was known to deliver her best lines, with great authority. At this point, she was just at the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, with her short-term memory diminished, though not her long-term. “I’m afraid you have romanticized Jack and Ari,” Janet told her daughter. “Neither one was good to you, Jacqueline. Maybe they were exciting men, but good husbands they were not.” Perhaps that wasn’t really the point, though, Janet offered. If Jackie’s intuition was telling her that Ed wasn’t right for Caroline, for whatever reason, then it was her responsibility as the mother to disallow the marriage. She also added that Caroline was “young and pretty. Someone better will come along,” Janet said. “You can get her settled later. The bloom won’t yet be off the rose. I hope.”
Jackie stood up and walked over to her mother. Bending down, she took Janet’s face in both her hands. She kissed her on the cheek. “You’re right, Mummy,” she told her. “When you’re right, you’re right.” Then, with a distant kind of smile, she left the room.
PART II
The Politics of Marriage
“Marriage Is About Forgiveness”
Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg would finally marry in Hyannis Port on July 19, 1986, Ed’s forty-first birthday. “The weather was perfect,” recalled the family’s chef, Neil Connolly, “a gorgeous July day that every bride would wish for. There were breakfasts, boat lunches for the Senator and his guests, and a parade of elaborate dinners. That morning I accompanied Jackie on foot as she crisscrossed the grounds of the compound, making last-minute arrangements to ensure the day would go smoothly.”
Jackie asked Ethel to be responsible for the hairstyling and makeup of the women in the party, and also some of their friends and relatives when necessary. “Nothing too fancy,” Ethel cautioned as she walked into one of the rooms in her home in which the bridesmaids’ hair was being styled. “And nothing too sexy. We’re going to a wedding, not a nightclub. And don’t forget,” she hastened to add, “the shorter the skirt, the longer the confession.” Ethel also presented everyone with what would today be considered a “nondisclosure agreement,” a contract stipulating that every person involved in the wedding was restricted from talking to the media about it. “She actually had a stack of such documents—‘one for you, one for you, and one for you,’ she said as she went around to each person,” said Lenny Holtzman, the Boston stylist chosen by Ethel.
It would be a lovely wedding at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, a few miles from the family’s compound. Caroline’s stunning clover-appliquéd white silk organza wedding trousseau was designed by Carolina Herrera. Ted walked her down the aisle. John was best man. The next morning, there was a spectacular fireworks display over the bay at sunrise. Jackie, in a green crepe sheath by Carolina Herrera, graciously made it a point to dance with as many of the men in the Schlossberg family as possible; there obviously wasn’t one present who didn’t want a chance to have her in his arms.
After the wedding, a reporter asked Caroline what she would now be called, and, annoyed by the media intrusion, she responded with a curt “Caroline.”
Within a couple of years, Jackie began to appreciate Ed and what she called �
�that unique place in which he lives.” She would tell relatives that in getting to know him she’d come to realize that not all artists are easily accessible, and it sometimes takes effort to understand them and the way they occupy the world. Also, she decided that he really did make her daughter happy and, she concluded, maybe that was better than a life of thrilling adventures.
After Caroline and Ed had children of their own, mother and daughter became even closer. Jackie wanted nothing more than to have a close relationship with Rose, Tatiana, and Jack; all three loved their “Grand Jackie” very much.
Meanwhile, Mae and Alfred had their own rapport with the children, but, as it would happen, over the years there wouldn’t be much mixing with the Kennedys. If ever there was a case of people just not finding common ground because they were so different, it was so for the Kennedys and the Schlossbergs.
Caroline’s father in-law, Alfred, died in 1995. He was eighty-seven when he succumbed after a two-week bout with pancreatitis, leaving Mae, eighty-five, sadly on her own.
In the ensuing years, Mae continued to reach out to Caroline, always taking her side whenever there was any sort of disagreement with Ed. As the two women got to know each other—especially after Jackie’s death—they became even closer. After a long and happy life, Mae Schlossberg died peacefully in May 2005 at the age of ninety-four.
Everyone had to agree, though, that Caroline and Ed had what appeared to be a good relationship. One relative recalled asking Caroline about her philosophy relating to marriage and she said, “Marriage is about forgiveness.” It was a provocative observation, but what did it mean? Before that relative had a chance to pursue it, Caroline changed the subject.
Share Your Pain
Like Jackie and Mae before her, being a good mother mattered to Caroline Kennedy. For instance, if there was a school dance at Brearley for Rose or Tatiana, she always wanted to be one of the mothers on the committee. “Even though she was so famous and standing out always made her feel self-conscious, she did it anyway,” said one of Caroline’s closest friends. “She would also be one of the dance chaperones, if need be, or one of the moms filling plastic cups with soda—whatever it took. She would also be the mother waiting patiently in the car in front of the school for her girls at the end of the day, and no, she would not send Marta or some other person working for her to retrieve them. It was her job, and she not only wanted to do it, she absolutely loved doing it. She would send Jack off on a crosstown bus to Collegiate. She would then walk her girls ten blocks to their school, Brearley, and coordinate things so that she could pick them up at the end of the day on her way home, with Jack in the backseat after having met him at the bus stop.”
Family members recall what happened when six-year-old Jack came home from school one day and complained that, in class that day, everyone was told to pick a partner for a project. No one picked him. He was embarrassed and sad and felt isolated. Of course, Caroline was alarmed. She pushed the matter with him until learning that it was often the case with the boy that he was left with no partner, that the teacher had to select someone to work with him. When Caroline then went to the school to have a conference with the instructor, she was told that Jack was shy and didn’t open up to the other students enough for them to feel friendly toward him. It reminded her of herself when she was that age. She was often bashful, worried about what people thought of her as the daughter of a President, what they expected of her, and whether she could live up to those expectations. She and Ed then worked with Jack every day for months, trying to teach him social skills that they felt might help him with the other students in school. Their at-home suggestions worked; Jack became a popular kid in just a short time. Ed was proud. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” he told his son one day in front of others when he saw how well his boy was working on a science project in tandem with a friend.
After John’s death, Caroline’s life became less structured, her time for her children compromised by her grief. She was more snappish. For instance, in front of one mother at Brearley, she told eleven-year-old Rose, who was apparently having a bad day, “Life is not hard, Rose. You just insist upon making it hard.” The little girl just gazed up at her mother, not knowing how to respond.
Just as her mother had done before her where her father’s death was concerned, Caroline wanted to protect her children from the sadness and pain of losing their uncle John, to whom they were close. It was pathology so clear to the older members of the family who had seen Jackie do it and who had also done it themselves to their own children. It was the reason Caroline spent so much time on an analyst’s couch as a child, and she knew it. She recognized it as a problem, but she didn’t know what to do about it.
It just so happened that at this same time, Caroline’s cousin Maria Shriver was writing a children’s book about death and dying and how to explain all of it to youngsters. The idea was borne of the questions her own children had asked her after the death of Rose Kennedy, as well as Maria’s own experiences with the subject in a family that had seen its share of death but never wanted to discuss it. Maria talked to Caroline about being more open with her grief and resisting the temptation of trying to shelter her children from it. “They know what’s happening,” she told her cousin. “Let them in. Let them share your pain over John.”
It wasn’t easy, and probably if she were able to go back all these years later and do it again she would be even more open to the idea, but Caroline did at least make an effort to shed her tears openly.
In that first six months, the last thing Caroline wanted to do was make any personal appearances. However, she had made a commitment to appear at a dinner celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library and Museum on October 4. Ed suggested she cancel, but she felt obligated. Looking wan and unwell, she stood before an audience and said, “There are a few people I would like to salute. The first is my brother, John,” she said, choking back tears, “who brought his own sense of purpose, idealism, and fun to the public service which I hope that we can all continue.” After she finished, she ran backstage and broke down. It was too soon.
Two weeks later, Caroline was back at the JFK Library with the Senator. The two were reviewing footage of John that was to be incorporated into a video tribute of him for the library’s research department. “This is tough,” Caroline was overheard telling her uncle Ted. According to witnesses, she seemed to be unraveling. “I know,” Ted said as he reached out and pulled her into an embrace. After a few moments, Caroline tried to move away. “No, not yet,” Ted told her in a tender voice. He then pulled her back into his arms and repeated, “Not yet.”
Think Before You Speak
While Caroline was working on a marriage that was being conducted out of the public eye—or at least as much as possible considering who she was in our culture—her cousin Kerry Kennedy was having a different kind of marriage with her husband, the politician Andrew Cuomo. Despite the fact that she knew her union to him was flawed, it had been Kerry Kennedy’s decision to be at Andrew’s side throughout the time he campaigned to be his party’s nominee for governor of New York prior to the 2002 state convention. It wasn’t easy, but life with him had always had certain challenges. He was constantly on the road, for instance; never did he turn down an opportunity to speak, shake hands, and interact with his constituency, especially if it had to do with fund-raising. His absence left Kerry feeling sad and alone. However, because she feared Andrew would have trouble getting the nomination if he was in the midst of a high-profile separation, she tucked away any personal grievances.
At one point during the two-and-a-half-year run-up to the convention, Andrew was living in New York while Kerry and the girls were in Washington. That situation proved to be untenable; his daughters missed him as much as their mother did. Soon they would all relocate to Bedford, close to where Bobby and Mary lived, which at least gave best friends Kerry and Mary more opportunity to be together in Andrew’s absence. No matter what was going
on privately, though, Kerry still believed in Andrew’s vision for New York, especially when it came to programs for the poor and for women’s rights. She’d forsake much of her own human rights work in order to stump for him, giving many compelling speeches in support of his agenda. She was able to raise millions for his campaign.
From the beginning of Andrew’s interest in being governor, it had been the strong advice of Democratic policy makers that he hold off. They wanted him to defer to the first black nominee, Carl McCall, at the time New York state comptroller. Two decades older than Andrew, McCall also had multiple terms in the New York Senate under his belt. It was his time, they argued, not Andrew’s, especially because, if he won, McCall could end up the first black governor in the state’s history. Besides, they said, how could Andrew run against an African American in the New York primary without appearing to be race-baiting every time he criticized him? In appearing to do so, he would make an enemy of the entire black community of New York, even though most of this faction had been supportive of his father.
The Kennedy Heirs: John, Caroline, and the New Generation Page 34
