St. Ann’s, in the Neponset section of Dorchester, is an Irish-Catholic and Kennedy stronghold.
Rose and Joseph Kennedy lived in that area when they were first married. It is also a short ride up Dorchester Avenue to Saint Margaret Hospital where Ted Kennedy was born, and my six children as well.
It is an area of Boston that political pundits describe as the key for the election of John “Honey” Fitzgerald, the legendary Boston mayor and grandfather of President Kennedy.
When they first arrived from Ireland, Fr. Larner’s family settled in this same Dorchester neighborhood. Fr. Jim’s father lived on a neighboring farm from my wife Kathy’s father, Frank Coyne, in Renvyle, County Galway.
One of the longtime neighborhood residents came up to me and asked if I was invited to Teddy Kennedy’s funeral the following morning.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m included with all the big shots anymore. But if I’m invited, I certainly will attend,” I replied.
“I don’t know why you wouldn’t be invited. You probably have known the Kennedy family as long as most politicians who will be at the funeral Mass,” he said.
What he said next surprised me.
“Your good mother and my good mother served on the reception committee for Mrs. Rose Kennedy back in the early 1950s. It was a Gold Star Mother’s tea reception for the mother of the candidate. John Kennedy was running for congress.”
This event was held at the Lithuanian Club on West Broadway in South Boston and several hundred women who had family members in the military attended.
Although I was only 12 or 13 at the time, I vividly remember my mother and our neighbors making Irish soda bread for the reception for Mrs. Kennedy and her son Jack. Mrs. Kennedy was extremely popular as the daughter who often accompanied her father, the mayor, throughout the city.
I helped my mother carry the paper shopping bags of bread and butter down Broadway. While waiting for my mother at the “Lith Club,” I stood in back of the bar while the men watched the New York Giants football game on television. The Giants were the only team we could get on Boston television at the time.
Just then, Mrs. Kennedy, Jack Kennedy and several other family members, including Teddy, walked in and introduced themselves.
Teddy was a student at Harvard and we talked about several of his teammates who he played football with and worked with at the South Boston Boys Club, including John Culver, who later became a U.S. Senator from Iowa.
I would talk to members of the Kennedy family hundreds of times throughout the years and especially when I was mayor. In part because of Ted, one of the most remarkable political accomplishments in the country took place when I was in office.
Four of the largest public development projects in the country were funded in large part with federal tax dollars. The projects included the new Boston City Hospital, the cleanup of the polluted Boston Harbor, the Ted Williams Tunnel and of course, the massive “Big Dig” transportation infrastructure project.
The remarkable thing about the successful side of these development projects, which created a record number of private sector jobs in Boston, was that they took place under a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, and only a slight Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
Ted Kennedy, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Governor Mike Dukakis and myself, were all Democrats who wanted to get things done for our constituents by working cooperatively with Republicans. Contrast that with the situation today, what with all the politically partisan divisions.
Growing up in a largely working class Irish Catholic neighborhood, like South Boston and Charlestown, the Kennedy family were not thought of as rich and famous, but as one of our own.
We prayed with them in time of trouble and we celebrated with them in time of joy.
Teddy Kennedy’s first major campaign event was the historic debate at South Boston High School in 1962. His last was at the JFK Library in 2009. I was on hand for both.
Still, like many Irish families, we had our differences though we certainly didn’t like it when outsiders ridiculed them. I was often asked what it like growing up in Southie during the Kennedy era. My response? “You had to be there and you had to be Irish.”
When my mother was dying at the Boston City Hospital, Ted Kennedy visited her. When I recently underwent a cancer operation, the first call I received at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was from Ted Kennedy.
Kennedy had just been diagnosed with brain cancer and he was concerned with the health of another. Yes, I was the former mayor, but it wasn’t because of that. Ted showed kindness to everyone. He touched the lives of people he didn’t even know.
“Yes, I have known Ted Kennedy for a long time,” I told my friend outside St. Ann’s Church.
“Yes, I knew a man of enormous influence, but also a man of enormous Irish sensitivity, especially to people who needed a helping hand.”
At the end of all the services, darkness had fallen at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday night and it was difficult for Ted’s grandchildren to read what they wanted to say at the gravesite.
I had done live television commentary for Fox News from the nation’s capital for over three hours. Chris Wallace, who moderated the special, asked me if I had any final reflections. Just about everything had been said, but I did add this: “Ted Kennedy is laid to rest, reunited with the other deceased members of his family. But even in darkness, the eternal flame burns brightly.”
After all the services concluded, I stopped in the Dubliner Pub for a sandwich before going next door to my hotel for the night.
The Irish Pub was crowded with Kennedy staffers, dressed in black dresses and dark suits. Several recognized me walking in with my Red Sox hat and began telling me how much they enjoyed listening to me telling stories about Boston politics and the Kennedys.
“It was fun,” one staffer told me, “Boston accent and all.”
The next morning before heading back to Boston, on my way to the airport, I asked my driver to stop for a moment at the cemetery.
I was there when Jack Kennedy was laid to rest all those years ago, and I was there last weekend when Teddy was laid to rest beside him and Bobby.
Boston Irish politicians all.