Rose Kennedy Is Buried With Love, Laughter

On his office wall in Washington, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the mourners in St. Stephen’s Church here Tuesday, there is a framed letter from his mother chastising him for saying “if I was President.”

As Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, then in her 90s, wrote in her “Dear Teddy” note, “You should have said ‘if I were President,’ because it is a position contrary to fact.”

The anecdote drew laughter from the more than 1,000 worshippers in the church and thousands more who braved an icy cold morning to hear the funeral service for Rose Kennedy on loudspeakers outside. It was one of many loving tributes offered to the 104-year-old matriarch of the Kennedy family, who died Sunday from complications of pneumonia.

Among the encomiums read by Bernard Cardinal Law, who presided at the funeral Mass, was a telegram from Pope John Paul II offering “heartfelt condolences,” and saying he was “saddened to hear” of Mrs. Kennedy’s death.

That sentiment was clearly shared by many. More than 150 Kennedy relatives packed into buses for the 75-mile trip to Boston from the family compound in Hyannis Port, where Mrs. Kennedy died. Dignitaries from all over poured into the stately old church in this city’s quaint North End where Mrs. Kennedy was baptized.

Tipper Gore, wife of the vice president, represented the Clinton Administration, along with White House Counselor Thomas (Mack) McLarty. Dozens of members of the House and Senate--colleagues of Sen. Kennedy, his nephew, Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.), and his son Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.)--also made hasty trips to Boston for the service, returning to the Capitol for Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech.

Six of Mrs. Kennedy’s 28 grandchildren served as honorary pallbearers, including Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and John F. Kennedy Jr., the children of the late President John F. Kennedy.

One of the granchildren, Rep. Joseph Kennedy, invoked “in Gramma’s words” the value of “the grace of laughter, the scent of a flower, the rhythm of dancing, the infinite joy of true love.”