Like a favorite aunt reminiscing about growing up with your famous relatives whom everyone--including her--loves a lot
Having read so many books on the Kennedys--including Ted Kennedy's memoir True Compass: A Memoir and Rose Kennedy's Times to Remember--I wasn't sure what to expect from Jean Kennedy Smith (former ambassador to Ireland), the youngest Kennedy daughter--and the only daughter to write a memoir.
It wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but I wasn't really disappointed either. Jean Kennedy's memoir is obviously heavily influenced by the family legacy--the knowledge that she is the surviving child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, whose three sons--and whose family itself--mean so much to so many Americans. With that responsibility in mind, she shares cozy memories, warm and positive ones, of growing up in that family.
Modestly, Jean's memories in this book are all shared with a brother or sister or her parents--except when she goes away to college and her roommate (soon to become her close friend) is Ethel Skakel, who will soon fall in love with and marry Jean's older brother Bobby. Other than that, and meeting her own husband (who also became an important help to her brothers), Jean keeps the family front and center in her memoir--and, of course, she's right, that's exactly who we want to hear about. It's a slim book--more about Kennedys growing up than the political years and decisions--and you won't find any scandals--but there's a quiet charm of days gone by, when even adults played touch football on the lawn near the ocean and evening entertainment was family word games, listening to a radio program, or --for the Kennedy children-- the treat of having their father (at one time a movie producer who helped start RKO studios) bring home a new movie to show to the family and friends in the private screening room at Hyannis Port.
She mentions current events sparsely as needed--the family life in London before the war, when Joe was U.S. ambassador there (the first Catholic ambassador to Protestant England). Historical events are touched on lightly and infrequently; this is a personal book, not a history lesson.
Unlike her brother Ted, Jean doesn't write about the tough school years at a variety of boarding schools for the boys and Catholic school for the girls. Instead, she describes the (possibly over-idealized) summers together on the Cape. Unlike her mother, she doesn't talk about the family struggles of past generations, or say much about the business of Joe or the frequent long travels of Rose. Biographers pointed out that Joe made many decisions for the boys and Rose was closer in many ways with the girls, and that comes through here, too, although Joe still seems the warmer and more affectionate parent. Rose, shows herself as disciplined, a natural (and ambitious) teacher and a mother who wanted her children to use the summer vacations to develop skills in everything from swimming to dancing to tennis to typing--punctuated with a daily hour for reading (Jack loved this; some of the others found it an unwelcome restriction). Both parents were highly aspirational, instilling in their children the importance of family, of learning, of accomplishing important things in life and in not taking their comforts and good fortune for granted.
Rose's memoir will show you a little more the downside--she's honest about hitting the children (Eunice calls it "beating" them) with coat hangers--and her guilt about frequent trips away from home, with Joe taking over many duties, along with the nurses. In her own memoir, Rose and Joe seem very strict, very demanding--high standards and demands mixed with pride and indulgence for their nine children with their high spirits, noise and fun--being sure to keep them unspoiled and engaged in meaningful activities.
Jean loves her parents and her brothers and sisters and has nothing bad to say about any of them. She does, briefly, mention the sad times--her oldest brother's death in the war, her eldest sister's botched lobotomy that left her severely mentally and physically impaired, another sister's fatal plane crash when she was barely 28 years old. Then, of course, she mentions the public service of her three brothers and -- briefly, and without much detail, the assassinations of Jack and Bobby. There's not much here about her own children--she knows we want to hear about Jack and Bobby and Teddy and the fun growing up and how great they were as adults and how she loved and idolized them just like so many of us do still--only Jean was there.
It's a light book, a fast read, with a photo on almost every open double-page, not on special photo paper so its not very well detailed, but they're great to see, and makes it a bit like a scrapbook feeling. Where else will you read about--and see--the Halloween costumes Jackie designed for her and Jean while first lady--so that they could go trick or treating in cognito with their children? Jean relied a lot on her own journals for the stories she shares. If you are a fan of the Kennedy's, her book is not going to tell you anything shocking or (if you've read a lot) much that's new, but it's Jack and Bobby and Teddy's sister--she's the last of their generation, and she wants to tell us about what it was like back then. Seriously, who could resist grabbing a cup of tea and enjoying her memories? , .
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