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The Kennedy Curse, Part 3
55 Plays22 days ago
Welcome back to the Kennedy Curse. Today, we talk about how the Kennedy family ended up in Boston from Ireland and the first generation born in the United States.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: The Kennedy Curse
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I am Nikki and I'm here with my Aunt Joy. We are two neurodivergent ladies who obsess about various topics. Joy is autistic and I have ADHD and we are letting our hyper fixations fly.
00:00:14
Speaker
Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
Joe and Rose Kennedy: Foundations of a Dynasty
00:00:19
Speaker
Music
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. Today, we are going to talk about Joe and Rose Kennedy. i think we would call them the second generation Kennedys.
Courtship and Parenting: Building the Next Generation
00:00:40
Speaker
So last week, we kind of went over the generation that emigrated to the United States from Ireland, that the first generation fully born in the U.S.,
00:00:51
Speaker
And now we're on to the next generation. Yep. So we are going to focus specifically kind of on Rose and Joe's courtship and marriage and parenting and things like that in this episode.
Ambition and Influence: Joe's Vision for the Family
00:01:03
Speaker
Kind of how we set up the generation to follow to have this illustrious political career and kind of become really like American debutantes, I almost want to say. And Joe plays such an integral role. Yeah.
00:01:19
Speaker
Yeah. In this. He's such a, don't know if i want to call him powerful figure because that maybe gives him a little too much. it It sounds. No, I think, I think he was. Yeah. i think that's okay to say. So yeah, he's this central powerful figure that um has strong ideas. He knows what he wants and he wants to meld a family that fits his vision. Yeah. So as with the last couple episodes, all of the sources will be listed in the show notes. There's a lot. Yeah.
00:01:50
Speaker
All right. Joe was born on September 6th, 1888 to marry Augusta and PJ Kennedy. From a very early age, Joe was incredibly ambitious and he even started working at the age of six.
00:02:05
Speaker
My kids are so lazy. None of them have jobs.
00:02:12
Speaker
Joe's mother, Mary, was a social climber. Her expressions of love depended on Joe's achievements, depending on how well he was doing socially or in school or anything like that would determine how much affection she would give him.
00:02:30
Speaker
And specifically she was very specifically focused on Joe out of all her kids. Yep. Yep. Joe was... the future of the family.
00:02:41
Speaker
She also encouraged him to hide his Irish origins. So with the previous generations, we didn't really see that. It was pretty obvious that they were Irish. But we talked about last week how they switched Patrick's, his father's name around. His father's name was Patrick Joseph, and they named him Joseph Patrick to make him sound less Irish.
00:03:03
Speaker
Joe met Honey Fitz's daughter Rose when they were children. and they fell in love as teenagers. Joe graduated from Harvard in 1912 with a bachelor's in economics.
00:03:16
Speaker
he Never quite made it in like the waspy world. He wanted to be seen as like wealthy, aristocratic type of person, but he could never like really get there. But he knew how to suck up to important people to get by. Which could be argued is a more important trait to have. Yeah.
00:03:36
Speaker
When his father died in 1929, Joe became the patriarch, and the head of the family, And this led to this like maniacal desire for wealth and power.
00:03:47
Speaker
So that ambition kind of turned into the opposite of Bridget's ambition, which was to set up her family, to do well, to have a good life.
Scandals and Power: Joe's Political Maneuvers
00:03:57
Speaker
And we add that power element into it that he that the Kennedy men started seeking Very intensely. And even PJ, his father, was outgoing and loved by the community and seemed to have a little bit more of ah a heart and good intentions. Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
Empathy even. So Joe was able to make a lot of money after he graduated. He worked in finance initially, but then he would reinvest money in shipping lines, film studios, and real estate. He was very savvy.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah. Right after college, he was elected head of Columbia Trust Company, which was an organization owned by his father and his father's friends. But he was so proud of this. He sent out a press release touting himself as being the youngest bank president in the country. The dude's not humble. He's not humble. He is not humble. And at this point, once he started kind of acquiring this wealth and power... I should have mentioned, they got, Joan Rose got married forever ago. They were married when he was at Harvard, I believe. So they are married.
00:05:06
Speaker
But once he started getting this power and recognition, he began a long-term affair with actress Gloria Swanson, which I think is another thing we will see is, first of all, just like flagrantly cheating on your spouse. The men could only cheat. The women did not.
00:05:24
Speaker
And now we're seeing like the Hollywood side of it getting pulled in, that this long-term affair with this famous actress, his name is getting out there even more.
00:05:36
Speaker
Is it slightly ironic that I give him a little bit of credit for at least it being a long-term affair? Right. I know. That's... At least he wasn't jumping woman to woman. I mean, he still was. no i know that's not much of an accomplishment. But he also still was.
00:05:54
Speaker
he did So he still wasn't loyal to Gloria. No. All right. I take it back then. ah Also at the time, rumors that he was involved in bootlegging operations during Prohibition. i would say that's probably where the majority of the wealth came from.
00:06:10
Speaker
i would I would call it yeah. I think rumors is a yeah is it light. yeah i um I think it's pretty well established. push that yeah And again, money through alcohol sales. And he did not drink. So again, kind of recognizing ah that pattern recognition of what's around him. And really probably that not drinking being a source of his power. Yeah. And probably pride. Especially in his mind. his Yeah. Pride.
00:06:35
Speaker
power, and perceived self-integrity. Yeah, absolutely. i agree with that. Joe increased his wealth during the Great Depression due to his real estate prowess. So during the Great Depression, he had enough money to establish million-dollar trust funds for each of his nine children.
00:06:54
Speaker
During the Great Depression. But again, history shows us that these difficult times and depression for the underclass often lead to benefit for the for the upper class and we see that. Today, not just in this family, but... Everywhere.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I hope my, like, astonishment at that doesn't come off as me thinking it's a good thing. Because it's actually probably horrific. The means he went to to make money when it was such a devastating time for so many people.
00:07:28
Speaker
Joe's notoriety as a businessman lent to the world of politics. And he started using his wealth to influence politics. Wow. He made a very large donation to FDR's campaign in the hopes of becoming his secretary of state.
00:07:43
Speaker
He believed that he was smarter than Roosevelt and he could like kind of puppeteer and mold Roosevelt's politics. So he's got this huge like sense of grandeur.
00:07:55
Speaker
he thinks he's the smartest person in the room. And this begins and the first of many connections between the two over the years. Yeah. And not necessarily positive ones. Yeah. Let's just say Roosevelt wouldn't have given Joe the eulogy at his funeral.
00:08:13
Speaker
Nor vice versa. Joe did have this ah talent is a gross word for this, but I can't think of anything else. Ability to use men's weaknesses to his advantage.
00:08:24
Speaker
But in this, his grandiosity fueled his ambition, but also led to like pretty stupid and self-destructive choices. That thought of being the smartest person in the room brings on a lot of arrogance.
00:08:37
Speaker
hate to say it, the word we don't like to overuse, but we see definite narcissistic tendencies. Yes, absolutely. So FDR recognized what Joe was attempting to do, and instead of offering him Secretary of State, he offered him ah the role as the head of the founding chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then a position as the head of the Federal Maritime Commission.
00:09:03
Speaker
Joe was not satisfied with this. He wanted to be the ambassador to England. Which is somewhat ironic, because I feel like a chairman to the Secretaries and Exchange Commission...
00:09:14
Speaker
commission As chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, he could have taken advantage more to ah to create more wealth.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah. But I think ah he saw it was almost like his Irishness outweighed that in this moment because yeah the idea of an Irishman having such a powerful position in England was wild.
00:09:43
Speaker
So I think he set his sights on that almost as like revenge for how the English would treat the Irish. Yeah. Yeah. Joe believed that the Irish were smarter, tougher and all around better, which really made him an outcast in that like upper class Protestant WASP community and country because it was very that was kind of where the country was at the time.
00:10:07
Speaker
This made it for him acceptable to live in such a way that breaking a moral code could be justified if the proper end was met. Joe's father also looked down on his fellow Irishman.
00:10:21
Speaker
PJ avoided alcohol to maintain control, and he taught that to Joe. So Joe kind of had this, he almost went like... completely opposite and embraced his Irishness and celebrated it,
Supporting Roles: Rose's Contribution to Joe's Ambitions
00:10:33
Speaker
but used it as a way to kind of prove a point.
00:10:38
Speaker
I don't really know if he cared about his Irishness so much as used it as like a fuel for his ambition. Yeah. A tool, if you will. Yeah. and Well, seeing that, I mean, it goes back to to seeing the weakness in others and how to exploit them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:10:56
Speaker
So FDR was against appointing Joe as ambassador, but Joe still told his older kids, older boys, Joe Jr. and Jack, to plan on moving to London.
00:11:09
Speaker
Rose always encouraged Joe's grandiosity. She married a man just like her father, except she wasn't made to be a partner in his public life.
00:11:20
Speaker
She spent her married life having and raising children. So she supported and was the loving, doting wife from home. She wasn't like a partner standing by his side when he was like speaking publicly or doing things like that.
00:11:33
Speaker
She accepted her role as wife and mother. And that was how she supported his ambition because she knew his ambition would benefit her even from home.
00:11:44
Speaker
She was happy to stay behind the scenes. Yes. So a story was planted in the New York Times that FDR was appointing Joe as ambassador to England.
00:11:55
Speaker
This infuriated FDR, who privately called Joe a dangerous man. And you wonder who planted that story. Right? Can't imagine.
00:12:06
Speaker
FDR felt like his hands were tied. He had no no choice but to grant him this ambassadorship. But it was conditional. It was only going to be for six months.
00:12:17
Speaker
And FDR said this would repay any obligation he had to Joe for helping him get elected and would keep Joe away from Washington, D.C. and kind of out of his hair.
00:12:29
Speaker
he was ready just to to be done with this guy. Yeah. Yeah. So Joe took off for England on February 1938. Yeah.
00:12:39
Speaker
Eight of his nine children came to see him off, but Rose did not come to see him off. And she didn't because she had just had an emergency appendectomy that her children didn't even learn about until they read it in the newspaper.
00:12:54
Speaker
That's crazy. i will tell you, when I had an emergency appendectomy, everyone on the street knew I had an emergency appendectomy. You wonder if Joe was aware. Yeah. And if he saw his departure as more important.
00:13:11
Speaker
as outshining yeah i think that's possible but i also think kind of we just talked about rose being like that strong person in the background i also think it's possible that she was just like i just have to keep quiet about it i'm fine and i could see that turning into like almost a martyr complex type of thing of of like i just have to suffer this alone yeah okay A few months later in May, Rose did end up joining Joe in England, and she settled into society very well, as did the kids.
00:13:44
Speaker
Joe had long curated what his family looked like to the media. And in England, he allowed unposed photographs of his family to be taken.
00:13:55
Speaker
They got so comfortable there and did so well. He saw how the perception of his loving family emerged. influenced yeah the public. Yeah, definitely.
00:14:06
Speaker
At this time, Joe and Charles Lindbergh became fast friends. There's a surprise. Right. So Lindbergh had been pretty publicly sharing his positive views about Hitler and U.S. isolationism with Joe, but also, like I said, publicly.
00:14:26
Speaker
And Joe really took to this. And I hate to keep saying it, but again, we see this history repeating itself over and over throughout current politics. Yep. So in 1939, Joe was summoned to the prime minister's home where he was told that the UK had entered the war.
00:14:46
Speaker
And Joe cried, um really was upset about the possibility of losing his sons. but also his money. He scrambled to get his family back to the US. He sent basically his family home in waves as quick as he could, except for his daughter, Rosemary, who was doing so well at her special school. He didn't want to uproot her.
00:15:07
Speaker
We will talk a lot about Rosemary, i think next episode. And I can't remember if I put this in the notes. I will say to Joe's credit, he loved his kids. And he had, ah like i think, a really special bond, especially with his girls.
00:15:22
Speaker
He had a bit of a soft spot for his daughters. And despite what he did to Rosemary that we'll talk about, he did at this time... want the best for her and she adored him. So I get the feeling though, I guess I'm a little more cynical about this. Yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker
I get the feeling that it was not like necessarily an altruistic intention. It very well is possible. Yeah. i would say like you and I think read that a little different. I don't think we think it like, I agree. Yeah.
00:15:54
Speaker
I think ah it their lives, it will talk a lot about this next episode. I think their lives are a lot easier without Rosemary. Right. And it scrambled ah and sending his family back in waves was, again, like a perception. um He didn't want the public to see. He thought it would look really bad because people were scrambling to get back to the U.S. and it would look Really bad if his family suddenly all were able to get ahead of of the rest of the um citizen. So that's why he kind of spread it out so that it wasn't quite so obvious.
00:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, they were fleeing. So FDR was very displeased to hear about Joe's crusade for U.S. remaining isolated and Joe being against intervening in any sort of future war with Germany. Because Joe yeah joe was not quiet about it.
00:16:47
Speaker
No. Lindbergh at least first was like kind of on the down low and got very loud about it. But Joe like was not quiet about it. You're absolutely right.
00:16:58
Speaker
And at that point, that was FTR expected a bit more loyalty and. Well, I think also and ah to do the right thing. Like Joe is very much like, not our business. Stay out of it. And FDR is like, the world's crumbling. like We have to intervene. We're the the strongest military force and on the planet.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah. and i And he wanted to keep the message consistent throughout his government. Yeah.
Political Downfall and Legacy: Joe's Shift to His Sons
00:17:25
Speaker
So this gets into some very uncomfortable things about Joe and Hitler.
00:17:31
Speaker
Joe saw Hitler as what Nietzsche described as a Superman. So the definition of like a philosophical Superman is someone who transcends earthly morality and creates his own value and meaning for humanity.
00:17:46
Speaker
joe was really blind to the horrors of nazi germany and he believed that anything that was happening to the jews had been brought on by themselves joe even tried to convince fdr to form a friendship with hitler and like i don't know completely like allying with germany but he was encouraging at least uh friendship And it was again public, which was incredibly upsetting to American Jews. And Joe leaned into this upset by Jewish Americans by blaming them for twisting his words and warping what he was saying.
00:18:25
Speaker
And it's, i think, ironic that he had the belief that they brought their fate on themselves when that was exactly the mentality of the Irish.
00:18:38
Speaker
Well, of the Bostonians to the Irish is like. Right. Yeah. They deserve their place in the world. Yeah. How quickly we forget. Yeah.
00:18:49
Speaker
So Joe even worked with Chamberlain in the UK on a plan to evacuate German Jews who fled Nazi Germany into England to South America and Africa.
00:19:01
Speaker
So Joe was encouraging, like, not even letting Jewish people who were fleeing the violence... into the UK and sending them on their way. This plan quickly died.
00:19:12
Speaker
Joe also proposed an economic deal with Hitler that FDR shut down real quick. And it was very clear that Joe was only concerned with the financial interests of the US and thereby himself.
00:19:24
Speaker
So truly all of Joe's convictions, stances and behavior were due to a constant fear of losing his life's work, which was his fortune.
00:19:35
Speaker
In 1940, Joe decided to run for president with a commitment to keeping the U.S. isolated from the war. FDR had been considering a third term, and because he got wind of Joe's plans, FDR told Joe to stay in England, despite Joe's real fears of the threats of German air raids.
00:19:58
Speaker
This was Roosevelt was very smart for doing this because Joe's reputation would be destroyed if he disobeyed the president and fled back to the US. Joe in turn threatened to reveal FDR's secret interactions with the u k if he didn't release him from England.
00:20:16
Speaker
And Roosevelt relented and allowed Joe to come back to the U.S. within hours. Joe would go back to FDR for a third term after FDR made him guarantee that Joe's boys would not be sent to war.
00:20:32
Speaker
Which is somewhat surprising that FDR would even want him back as a player in his term, third term. Yeah. My guess is he recognized that Joe did hold power.
00:20:44
Speaker
publicly and and in the U S and did have sway. Joe was certain that he would be given a high powered position and FDR's cabinet and his oldest son, Joe jr. His career that was rising in politics would just be boosted. And at this this point, he was very focused on Joe jr. He was the golden boy at this point.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yep. Joe jr. Is the oldest. He was the future of the family. So this would all crash and burn when Joe gave an inflammatory interview with the Boston Globe declaring that democracy in the U.S. s and Britain was over. And this was somewhat behind FDR's back.
00:21:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It was unexpected and it was infuriating to him. Yeah. Yeah. So Joe was humiliated and demanded a retraction, which was denied because he did, in fact, say all those things. And this led to a complete falling out with FDR.
00:21:44
Speaker
So with this, Joe resigned himself to be in his kind of the political shadows of his sons. And he started using his political and financial connections to build supporters for their blossoming political careers.
00:21:58
Speaker
He understood any chances for himself was over at this point. Yep. On December 19th, 1961, Joe had a stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side. His ability to communicate was greatly impacted and he eventually was confined to a wheelchair. he would kind of spend the rest of his life easily frustrated and just generally upset.
00:22:22
Speaker
Interestingly, we'll get into it next week a bit more, but like his daughter, Rosemary, he lost his ability to walk and speak. And I think after playing this powerful patriarchal role throughout his family, that this sign of weakness was extremely difficult for him to accept and difficult for the family to face.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah. He was embarrassed. And didn't have a good way to express that, so it came out in anger. Joe's last public appearance was made in the wake of his son Bobby's assassination.
00:22:56
Speaker
He died at the family's Hyannis Port home on November 18th, 1969, which would have been his son Robert's 44th birthday. he was 81 years old, and he outlived four of his children.
00:23:09
Speaker
Quite amazing, though, that he did live to 81. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. His death was the first time that the Kennedy family saw their mother Rose cry.
Rose Kennedy: Faith, Family, and Longevity
00:23:19
Speaker
So Joe overall was pretty open about his love for his family, but he pushed his kids to win at all costs.
00:23:28
Speaker
He was tyrannical about winning. And Ethel... ah Bobby Kennedy's widow would tell her children over and over that everything they had in their life was because of their grandfather Joe even liked to see his children battle against each other oh whether it that was academically in sports they often talk about playing touch football and and he liked to see that aggression even between his kids Yeah, there is a great quote when we talk about Ted Kennedy or maybe we already talked. No, we talked about it in the first episode. That was like Joe would push Joe Jr. and Joe Jr. would push Jack and Jack would push Bobby and Bobby would push Ted and Ted would fall on his ass.
00:24:11
Speaker
All right. We're going to rewind a little bit. We're going talk about Rose. Rose Fitzgerald was born on July 22nd, 1890. She was the eldest child to Honey Fitz and Josie.
00:24:22
Speaker
She went to school at the Blumenthal Academy of the Sacred Heart. And I don't know how to say that in the Netherlands. She went to Dorchester High School. It was so hard not to say that with a bad Boston accent, but I did it.
00:24:38
Speaker
And the New England Conservatory. She wanted to attend Wellesley College, but her father would not allow it, and I don't remember why. She ah did end up attending Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan.
00:24:52
Speaker
She would later in her life go on to say that the biggest regret of her life was not attending Wellesley. so she was a very educated woman for her day. Absolutely.
00:25:03
Speaker
In 1908, she toured Europe with her father and had a private audience with Pope Pius at the Vatican. I add this because Rose's Catholicism would have everything to her from a very year early age. We'll talk about it a little bit more.
00:25:20
Speaker
She and Joe married on October 7th, 1914, when she was 24 years old. I was convinced she was younger, but you know, I wrote these notes a while ago.
00:25:30
Speaker
So Rose and Joe had a pretty good marriage, but it was tumultuous. She actually left him for a period of time when she was pregnant with their fourth child. She was kind of she was done with his unfaithfulness. It was throughout the marriage. She went home to her parents and her father sent her back saying divorce was not an option.
00:25:53
Speaker
At this time, Rose's sister Eunice was dying and her father Honey Fitz was consumed with grief. So that's probably part of why he was just like, go back to your marriage and fix that.
00:26:05
Speaker
He told her that she needed to get more help at home and with the kids and that she just had to deal with the marriage. Whatever happens, you stay in a marriage. And at this time, she started using medication to handle turning a blind eye to the infidelities.
00:26:20
Speaker
In 1927, Joe's longtime mistress, Gloria Swanson, claimed that Joe attacked and raped her. Rose either never learned about this or chose to ignore the violence.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I think it's probably the second. Now, he was never violent with Rose that we know of. To public knowledge. To public knowledge, yeah. Rose was a very strict Catholic until the day she died.
00:26:47
Speaker
In 1951, Pope Pius XII granted Rose the title of Countess to recognize, quote, exemplary motherhood and her many charitable works.
00:26:59
Speaker
She had a shrine to the Virgin Mary in her home. Like, she was, her Catholicism was everything. She believed that the greatest accomplishment for women was suffering.
00:27:11
Speaker
Women were meant to suffer while men sought out pleasure. She grew up seeing her mother spending nights in prayer while her father paraded around with other women while he was the mayor of Boston. That's amazing.
00:27:25
Speaker
Rose's third pregnancy was at the height of the 1918 influenza pandemic. This story about what happened when she was giving birth, I've seen it over and over.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I've heard a couple of things more recently that's like, this didn't happen. I'm going to say it because it's like the accepted story. But who knows? I think the probably the flu pandemic was the bigger issue. But I don't know. What do I know? I'm not a doctor.
00:27:52
Speaker
So when she was in labor, her obstetrician was running late and a nurse had arrived but was not allowed to administer anesthesia. So Rose was ready to have the baby, and the nurse kept ordering her to stop pushing, even holding her legs together and pushing the baby back inside.
00:28:11
Speaker
This is because if the nurse delivered the baby, the obstetrician wouldn't get paid. Interesting. The story goes that the nurse held Rose like that for two hours.
00:28:23
Speaker
it that It does seem kind of unrealistic, especially in the day and age where I feel like a lot of babies were born without a obstetrician, a formal obstetrician. Yeah, my my only like kind of thought about it is like once that did become the norm for society, i can see how a nurse would be like, he won't get paid. We have to wait for him. He's going to be so mad if I deliver this baby and he doesn't get paid.
00:28:51
Speaker
And I don't think Joe would pay him just to be a good guy. know No, no, no. Okay. So I'm thinking childbirth and holding the legs together. Like, i mean, ah does that work? I don't i guess it works. I don't know.
00:29:05
Speaker
Well, it was obviously a very traumatic labor and delivery. If this was the case, my dog is laying down right above my head on this the first floor of the house. So you're going to hear clicky clacks of claws. So this baby was Rosemary.
00:29:19
Speaker
Everything seemed okay with Rosemary for a while until Rosemary's younger sister, Kathleen, began hitting milestones before her. should be said Kathleen, who went by the nickname Kick.
00:29:32
Speaker
doted on rosemary and all the kids would eventually dote on rosemary side note i am obsessed with the nickname kick for kathleen so am i it's so cute i love it so kick was like very clearly rose's favorite child and this is because kick would stand up for rose when the older their older sons joe jr and jack mocked her Kick also once exploded on her father for bringing affair partners to the home and forcing his wife to treat them like guests.
00:30:08
Speaker
Fair? Yeah. Rose believed that a woman's highest calling was motherhood. It's question of, like, if this was a true belief or if it's kind of what she had to tell herself to be fulfilled in the life she chose.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah. and know She was always high energy and very organized, but her gifts would be dimmed by the men in her life. She truly also believed, just like Joe did, that losers were not allowed in the Kennedy family. And there is some family lore that Rose's discipline for losing was with a wire hanger.
00:30:44
Speaker
Rose believed firmly that sex was only for procreation. And after their ninth and final child was born, Rose told Joe that she would never have sex with him again.
00:30:57
Speaker
And my guess is this went further to justify in joe's mind the infidelity absolutely rose suffered a stroke in 1984 and used a wheelchair for the remainder of her life she died at the age of 104 on january complications from pneumonia at her hyannis port home She outlived three of her nine children.
00:31:26
Speaker
For a cursed family, we do have some longevity. Yeah. In their lives. Yeah. At least at least for these two. For Joe and Rose. Yeah. ah The family loved her deeply, including in-laws. At her funeral, her son-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or her grandson-in-law, her grandson-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the crowd that it was inappropriate for them to be yelling for him.
00:31:53
Speaker
he was like the huge movie star at this point. So he like yelled to the crowd. This isn't about me. Carolyn Bissette, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s, I believe they were engaged at the time or they were dating. But she actually attended the service that I just that just shows how long she lived.
00:32:12
Speaker
That her grandson's girlfriend came to the funeral and they were like in their thirty s Yeah. She gave a very favorable impression to the family, some saying that that they saw a resemblance of Jackie and Carolyn. In 1992, the intersection of Wells Avenue and Harley Street in Boston was named Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Square.
00:32:37
Speaker
In 2004, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Park was named after her. And in 2020, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge was named after her in Ireland. And that is the longest bridge in the country.
00:32:49
Speaker
Rose suffered tremendous loss in her life, but was always the focal point of the family. And she was always very emotionally available as a grandmother, but never as a mother.
Family Loyalty and Tragedies: The Kennedy Circle
00:33:01
Speaker
right, we got a couple tangential family tragedies in this time frame. In 1928, Humphrey Charles Mahoney, a distant Kennedy relative, and his grandson died after being hit by a car in Saratoga Springs. In 1936, Mary Agnes Fitzgerald Gargan was found dead at the age of 43 by her then six-year-old son, Joe Jr. This is a different Joe Jr.
00:33:27
Speaker
Mary Agnes was Rose's sister. Her children, Joe, who was six, Mary Jo, who was three, and Anne, who was two, were taken in by their Aunt Rose and Uncle Joe, and they raised them.
00:33:40
Speaker
Joe Gargan, Jr., would eventually be asked by the family to take the blame for the death of Mary Jo Kopechny during the Chappaquiddick scandal. Which I am sure we will be getting into Later in detail.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yes. But I wanted to add that in now because that kind of goes back to the thing we talked about in the first episode of the the people in the Kennedy family circle who weren't full Kennedys and could show loyalty by the things they were willing to do for the Kennedys. So this even went to these three children who Rose and Joe took in and raised.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Well, that is Rose and Joe. Next week, we are going to talk very in depth about Rosemary Kennedy. I wanted to start with her as the third generation, first because it's going to be a lot.
00:34:34
Speaker
But ah what was done to her is one of the horrific most horrific things in the entire family's history. And I think I just i I wanted to really talk about her before getting into like this person ran for office and this person did this and all those things.
00:34:51
Speaker
She deserves a lot of ah a lot of people knowing her story. So that's why I wanted to start with her from the next generation. It's good. I'm looking forward to that. All right. Well, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. I hope everybody is liking this. I am like so deeply in Kennedy worlds that I'm loving this. All right, guys. Well, we will talk to you next week. All right. Bye, everyone.
00:35:16
Speaker
Bye.