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

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Old Friends of Hickory Hill

  On July 23, 2013, Ethel Kennedy walked outside onto her porch at the Cape facing the sea and eased her aged, eighty-five-year-old frame into a wicker chair. She was lost in thought. Moments earlier, she’d gotten the news that Ena Bernard had passed away at the age of 105.

  Where had the time gone?

  Ethel was just twenty-three when she hired Ena to help with baby Kathleen. That was sixty-two years ago. Ena had been with Ethel through so much over the span of forty-four years, a calming presence in the face of most of the tragedies that had visited the family. Of course, they also went up against each other quite often. When remembering their skirmishes, Ethel couldn’t help but smile. Since Ena retired in 1995, the Kennedys paid for all her medical expenses; the family had also provided her with a pension plan.

  It had been five years since Ethel last saw Ena, the occasion being the celebration of her one-hundredth birthday in June of 2008. Ethel and most of her children, as well as their spouses and offspring, flew down south for the party, which was held in a banquet room at the Signature Grand hotel in Davie, Florida. The fragile, white-haired Ena, who was now confined to a wheelchair, was overwhelmed that the Kennedys would show up for her party. They also had a chance to reconnect with Ena’s daughter, Fina. Each Kennedy sibling gave a heartfelt speech, paying tribute to a woman who’d helped raise them. They then gave Ena an award: a small trophy that said “For Ena, who captured the hearts of the whole family, and whose 50 years of giving pow-pow has made us all better.”

  Now Ena was gone, having died at her home in Sunrise, Florida. Ethel and eight of her grown children would attend the funeral at All Saints Catholic Church: Joe, Bobby, Kathleen, Kerry, Christopher, Maxwell, Douglas, and Rory.

  After the service, Ethel walked up to Ena’s casket and knelt before it, making the sign of the cross, and then prayed for at least five minutes. Then, in greeting Ena’s many friends and family, Ethel held court as she spoke of Ena. “She didn’t work for me,” Ethel said. “I worked for her,” she joked. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what I would have done after Bobby died.” She admitted that she really didn’t know what to do with so many kids, saying, “I figured I’d just make it up as I went along, but I found out it was tougher than I thought it would be.” She smiled as she recalled how her children sometimes ribbed Ena, even as adults. For instance, when Ena went through menopause, she gained some weight, which inspired a new nickname for her from the Kennedys she’d raised: “Costa Rica Fats.” Ethel cringed at the memory. “Ena would say to me, ‘How did you raise such awful kids?’” she recalled. “And I would laugh and say, ‘I didn’t raise them. You did.’”

  Of course, Ena Bernard wasn’t the only trusted caretaker of Ethel’s children at Hickory Hill during its halcyon days. There had been many others. One of the most valuable of her staff was her estate manager, Noelle Bombardier, someone Ethel hadn’t seen in more than twenty years. The end of their relationship wasn’t as amicable as Ethel and Ena’s because it had involved a truly frightening incident at the Kennedy compound.

  Noelle had gone to Hyannis Port to prepare the estate for Ethel’s summer stay. Other than house painters who were putting a fresh white coat on the home’s exterior, Noelle was alone there with her ten-year-old daughter, Danielle. One afternoon, the little girl was gone for about thirty minutes before her mother realized it. No one knew where she’d gone. One of the painters said he thought he saw her walking hand in hand with a woman he didn’t recognize, away from the compound and across the shoreline. Frantic, Noelle called the police. She then got into her car and drove along the beach at a breakneck speed until finally finding Danielle and the stranger, already surrounded by a SWAT team with guns drawn. After Noelle tore Danielle from the woman’s arms and demanded an explanation, the abductor said, “Oh, this is your child? I thought this was Ethel Kennedy’s daughter Rory.” Noelle was flabbergasted. “Were you trying to kidnap Rory?” she asked. “Yes,” admitted the woman. An hour later, after she composed herself, Noelle called Ethel to report the attempted kidnapping. She told her not to worry; the perpetrator was in custody and she was pressing charges against her. “No, absolutely not,” Ethel said. “You’ll do no such thing.” She then explained that if Noelle filed a police report, news of it might inspire copycat kidnappings of Kennedy children. “But if this was your child, I’m sure you would feel very differently,” Noelle said, crying. “No,” Ethel responded with icy reserve. “I assure you, Noelle, I would not.”

  “This incident put a real wedge between me and Mrs. Kennedy,” Noelle Bombardier would recall many years later. “I simply couldn’t understand how she would not want to press charges. ‘In fact, I want you to just forget it ever happened,’ she told me. Of course I couldn’t do that. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Kennedy,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think I can work for you any longer under these circumstances. I’m going to have to quit.’ She remained calm and told me to sleep on it. The next morning, I called and said I was driving back to Hickory Hill. ‘But if you leave now, who will let the maids in to clean the house for my arrival?’ she asked. ‘I don’t care about the maids,’ I told her. ‘I’m upset.’ So I drove back and we really had it out. ‘You are totally overreacting,’ she told me. ‘After all of these years, I can’t believe you want to leave Hickory Hill over this one little incident. I don’t want to lose you, Noelle.’ I told her I just didn’t feel safe, and the fact that she didn’t care about what could have been a true disaster in my life really affected me. So, shortly after that, I left Hickory Hill. It was very painful to me. I loved Mrs. Kennedy and the entire Kennedy family.”

  Noelle and Ethel didn’t see each other for more than twenty years. Then, at around the time of Ena Bernard’s death, Noelle attended a benefit for the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C. She happened to see Andy Williams’s manager and went up to him to say that she knew the vocalist from her Hickory Hill days. ‘Why, Mrs. Kennedy is here, too,’ he told her. ‘Why don’t you come back after the show and say hello to Andy, and see Mrs. Kennedy as well?’

  “Of course, my heart jumped a little,” recalled Noelle. “It had been so many years and I still had so much emotion attached to Mrs. Kennedy. But I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be to seeing me, considering the way we parted.”

  Following the show, Noelle went backstage. After greeting Ted Kennedy, she looked around and spotted Andy Williams, whose back was to her. She noticed he was speaking to someone, but she couldn’t see who because he was blocking her vision. When he moved just slightly, Noelle saw that it was Ethel. As Andy continued to speak, Ethel stared over his shoulder at Noelle with a look of disbelief on her face. She patted Andy on the arm, said a few parting words to him, and then made a beeline to Noelle. “Oh my God, it can’t be true,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Is that you, Noelle? Is that really you?” Noelle smiled. “It’s me,” she said. “How are you, Mrs. Kennedy?” Ethel grabbed Noelle and pulled her into an embrace.

  Noelle later recalled of the touching moment: “What can two people say when they know they’ll probably have just a few moments together and there’s so much rich history between them? We held each other tightly. I guess we didn’t really need words.”

  “Just look at you,” Ethel said as she pulled away. “My God. I can’t believe it.”

  “The years sure have passed,” Noelle said, “but tell me the truth,” she added with a smile. “We still look pretty good, don’t you think, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  Ethel took in her old friend from head to toe and smiled. “Heck, yeah, we do, kid,” she said, laughing. “You bet we do.”

  What Binds Us

  The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate—a facility to educate the public, students, and anyone interested in the work and duties of the United States Senate—was formally dedicated on March 30, 2015. The ceremony featured speeches by President Barack Obama (who was accompanied by First Lady Michelle Obama) and Vi
ce President Joe Biden. Other speakers included Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker; Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh; and Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and John McCain—introduced by Ted Kennedy Jr., who noted that “my father so enjoyed his collaboration with you for many, many years.” A year earlier, Ted Jr. had surprised his friends and family by announcing his candidacy for a seat in the Connecticut state senate. He was elected in November 2014 and then reelected in 2016. Certainly his father, who never viewed his namesake as a political animal, would have been overjoyed.

  Before introducing Joe Biden, Patrick Kennedy had a few words. Still looking youthful with his mop of reddish brown hair and in a suit that seemed a little too big for him, he said, “As I see this crowd here, I see my father, because all of you are a part of his life. And seeing you brings back great memories for me and my entire family.” With tears in his eyes, he continued, “I want to take this moment before I have the honor of introducing the Vice President to acknowledge my mother … Joan Bennett Kennedy.”

  At the mention of Joan—who was now seventy-eight—the entire place erupted into applause. Then, within seconds, everyone—including family members such as Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg; Ted’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy; and his sister Jean Kennedy Smith; as well as the many dignitaries and officials present—all rose to their feet. Looking a bit frail, Joan—in a cream-colored coat, her blond hair falling to her slim shoulders—stood up from her seat in the front row to acknowledge the reception. Once everyone was reseated, Patrick noted, “Of course, my dad would be saying, ‘Make sure you remember your mother.’” Then, pointing to the sky, he said, “So I did, Dad. I did.”

  After a number of speeches, Vicki was introduced. Looking elegant with her dark hair parted on the side and wearing a magenta-colored outfit with large pearls around her neck, she didn’t appear to be a day older than she had been twenty years before when she married Ted. “Teddy loved the United States Senate,” she said. “He hoped that everybody who came to this institute would know that politics—and he called it politics—is a noble profession, even if it’s messy. Even if it’s hard. We are Americans, he said, this is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.” After much applause, she then introduced President Barack Obama.

  It could be said that President Obama’s eloquent words that day said as much about the many generations of Kennedys—what they’ve endured as a family and what they’ve tried to teach by their example, the good and the bad—as it did about the inspiring life and enduring legacy of the man of honor, Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Yes, terrible things have happened to the Kennedys, sometimes by fate and circumstance, sometimes by their own volition. But there have also been moments of … greatness and, who knows? Perhaps some of those moments inspired a few generations of Americans to do with their lives that which they might not have otherwise thought possible. Or, as President Obama noted:

  “What binds us together across our differences in religion or politics or economic theory,” Ted wrote in his memoir, “[is] … the capacity to reach across our differences to offer a hand of healing.” For all the challenges of a changing world, for all the imperfections of our democracy, the capacity to reach across our differences is something that’s entirely up to us.

  May we all, in our own lives, set an example for the kids who enter these doors, and exit with higher expectations for their country. May we all remember the times this American family, the Kennedys, has challenged us to ask what we can do; to dream and say why not; to seek a cause that endures; and sail against the wind in its pursuit … and live our lives with that heightened sense of purpose.

  Epilogue: American Promise

  It was January 29, 2018. There he stood, looking robust behind a podium, like so many of his ancestors and relatives, in front of a nation of millions, the virtual embodiment of the hopes and dreams of not only a new generation of Kennedys but of those who still believed in the dream and in a family that had always personified that dream. He was Joseph Patrick Kennedy III, Democratic representative of Massachusetts’ Fourth Congressional District—the thirty-seven-year-old grandson of Bobby and great-nephew of Jack. Though he’d been serving for five years, this was the first time many people in America had ever laid eyes on Joe. As he stood before America in a light purple shirt and maroon tie with no jacket, his demeanor and personality shone through loud and clear. He was pure Kennedy—the artful connection with his audience, the eyes alert and sincere, the cadence of his language reminding some of his father, Joe, during his political heyday. He also displayed a quality many critics of Donald J. Trump, the President who’d just given his State of the Union address, felt was perhaps lacking in him: empathy. Most politicians will tell you that it can’t be faked. Either you care about people or you don’t. Of Trump’s White House, he said:

  This administration is not just targeting the laws that protect us, they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection. For them, dignity is not something you are born with, but something you measure by your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size. Not to mention the gender of your spouse, the country of your birth, the color of your skin, the God of your prayers. Their record has rebuked our highest American ideals, the belief that we are all equal, that we all count in the eyes of our laws, our leaders, our God, and our government. That is the American promise.

  As he spoke, Joe Kennedy exuded self-assurance and power; in every way, he was a Kennedy mastering his moment and reminding some of the way President John F. Kennedy had handled himself in the historic televised presidential debate with Richard M. Nixon in 1960. The response to him the next day would be overwhelmingly positive. Most media outlets agreed that he was a real up-and-comer, someone to keep an eye on, which, of course, is what the Kennedy family had been saying about him for years.

  Joe III is one of twin boys born in 1980 to Joseph P. Kennedy II and Sheila Rauch. He was born just two months after his uncle Teddy abandoned his presidential aspirations in 1980. He was six when his father was elected to Congress, eleven when his parents divorced, seventeen when his mother’s book, Shattered Faith, was published, which helped ignite the fire that eventually consumed his father’s political career.

  At twenty-three, after graduating from Stanford in 2003, Joe joined the Peace Corps, an important foundation of the family’s legacy established so long ago by his great-uncles Jack and Sarge. At twenty-six in 2006, he and his brother, Matthew, worked for their uncle Ted’s reelection campaign before he enrolled in Harvard Law School. He graduated at twenty-nine and went on to work at the Cape and Islands office as an assistant district attorney. In 2011, he joined the Middlesex County district attorney’s office. A year later, he officially entered politics, running in the Fourth Congressional District for the newly vacated seat of the retiring Barney Frank. Others had considered opposing him, but there was no point; he was a shoo-in not only because of his family’s popularity in the state but because he just seemed to have “it”—again, that ineffable quality that makes a politician. He won against Republican Sean Bielat with 61 percent of the vote. He won again in 2014 and then again in 2016.

  Despite the disappointing end to his father’s political career, Joe refused to be discouraged when it came to public service. Paying heed to his grandmother Ethel’s admonitions, he always knew he would serve in some capacity. He inherited the burden of expectation and didn’t mind it; he embraced it. “I grew up around politics,” he told Boston magazine. “But I think politics is a unique field in that you have to put yourself out there in a very public way for the entire world to see. People think my family pushed me into running for office. The person who pushed me most not to run for office was my father. He said, ‘If you don’t want to do this, it is going to be an absolutely brutal experience for you. So make sure that this is something that you yourself want to do and not some sort of invented idea of obligation.’ And that’s some of the best advice I’ve e
ver gotten.”

  Joe married Lauren Anne Birchfield, an attorney, in December 2012; they met in Harvard Law School, students of future senator Elizabeth Warren. They have had a happy marriage and are now the parents of a daughter, Eleanor “Ellie,” born on December 29, 2015, and a son, James Matthew, born on December 20, 2017.

  Joe’s twin brother, Matthew, who studied business at Stanford and Harvard, is a partner at InfraLinx Capital, an international project development and finance company. He’s the oldest of the twins by eight minutes, which he jokes were the “greatest eight minutes of my life. It’s all been downhill from there.” He has been married to Katherine Lee Manning since 2012, their wedding having taken place at the Kennedy compound, of course.

  Many of the Kennedy men of Joe’s generation have not had the kinds of troubled personal relationships that characterized their parents’ experiences. As this fourth generation of Kennedys steps into the light of public scrutiny, it would seem they’ve learned some important lessons about fidelity and commitment by watching their mothers and fathers duke it out over the years. Also, to their great advantage, this new generation doesn’t have to deal with the same kind of trauma suffered by their parents; after all, they’re one generation removed from the murders that so deeply affected their older relatives.

  “Joe III and [his brother] Matt were raised by a mom [Sheila Rauch] who taught them to respect women,” said Gayle Fee, who covered the Kennedys for thirty years for the Boston Herald. “It was a different generation in many ways. Many of the boys of that era—and these would be the grandkids of Ethel and the rest—were raised by strong women like Sheila and like Michael’s widow, Vicki. These were women who didn’t put up with a lot of nonsense for long. When Sheila was unhappy in her marriage, she did something about it; she divorced Joe and then fought the annulment he sought. Then she wrote that book. So her sons saw a strong, determined woman they could respect. It was a new day, all right. Sheila raised those boys on her own and kept them away from any bad influences.”