Brett Harper - Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, on a twin bed on the second floor of a gray, clapboard house on a tree-lined street in the wealthy Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts. His mother Rose was the oldest child of John Francis Fitzgerald - Honey Fitz, as he was known in the Boston precincts that sent him to Congress in 1894 and repeatedly elected him the citys mayor. Intelligent, boisterous, and energetic, Honey Fitz had graduated from Boston College and, for a time, attended Harvard Medical School.

He made his fortune in the newspaper business. After his congressional terms ended in 1901, he bought a failing weekly newspaper called The Republic for $500. Within three years, he had enough money to buy a gracious, fifteen-room home.

Rose studied at private schools and danced at debutante balls. She spent her summers on Cape Cod and in Maine, and winters in Palm Beach, Florida. Poised, attractive, and fluent in French and German, she and her father adored each other. As one biographer wrote, Fitzgerald delighted in the good looks of his daughter, in her intelligence, her presence of mind and superb social skills.... She proved to be her fathers equal in conversation, curiosity, dancing, athletic ability and powers of endurance and even in the capacity of fascinating reporters.

Rose attracted a host of young men, including Sir Thomas Lipton, a Scottish tea merchant and yachtsman. But it was red-headed, ambitious Joseph Patrick Kennedy who attracted her. They had met as children on vacation at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Neither of us had the faintest recollection of that historic encounter, Rose wrote, until many years later, someone turned up a yellowing clipping from a Boston newspaper: a group photograph of the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and a dozen or so other families lined up for the camera on a part of the beach, with a caption identifying everyone. And there was Joe, a rather spindly-looking nine- or ten-year-old, and there was I, not so much to look at either, but apparently taller though two years younger. Years later, when he was eighteen and she sixteen, they fell in love.

Joe Kennedy grew up in East Boston as the privileged son of Patrick J. Kennedy, a prosperous saloonkeeper turned liquor importer and powerful ward boss. Like Honey Fitz, he was the child of Irish immigrants who fled the potato famine. But unlike Honey Fitz, P. J., as he was called, shunned the limelight, preferring instead to work behind the scenes on behalf of the people of his ward.

As a boy, Joe Kennedy sold newspapers, devoured the rags-to-riches stories of Horatio Alger, and lent a hand in his fathers office. He organized a neighborhood baseball team, putting himself in charge. Joe summarized his philosophy to his sister this way: If you cant be captain, dont play. He attended Boston Latin, one of the most prestigious public high schools in the United States, where he was elected president of his class. Upon graduation, he was offered a spot on a professional baseball team, but he turned it down to enroll at Harvard University.

At Harvard, Kennedy felt the sting of the prejudice of Bostons Brahmins toward Irish Catholics. He never felt fully accepted when he was an undergraduate, Milton Katz, a Harvard Law School professor, remembered. I dont think he ever quite got over the feeling that these were not his people, and he liked to put them down whenever he could.

Kennedy graduated in 1912 and set his sights on a career in banking. His first job was at Columbia Trust Company, Bostons only Irish-owned bank, where his father was one of the largest shareholders. In 1913, his part in warding off a takeover of the bank earned him the job of president, making him the youngest bank president in the United States.

Throughout this time, he continued to see Rose. Her father, Honey Fitz, didnt care for Joe he thought the young man too brash and banned him from the Fitzgerald house early in his seven-year courtship of Rose. But Joe persevered.... theres no question, according to Doris Kearns Goodwin, that Joe Kennedy - young Joe Kennedy - saw Rose as the catch of Boston, maybe even America, at that time.

Kennedy ended up proposing to Rose on the sidewalk. When she made it clear that she would marry him with or without her fathers permission, Honey Fitz grudgingly gave his blessing.

On October 7, 1914, just months after the opening shots of World War I were fired, the couple wed in a simple ceremony in the private chapel of Cardinal William OConnell. Honey Fitz gave away the bride; a reception followed at the Fitzgerald home. I had a great many parties, receptions, and festivities while my father was mayor, Rose said later. So I preferred to have a small wedding, when it was time to be married. By the standards of the Boston Irish aristocracy, it was modest indeed. But the honeymoon at The Greenbrier, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was first-class all the way.