A Somber Kennedy Farewell

To the accompaniment of gospel and reggae music, and to the words of Shakespeare and Irish bards, family and friends bade a final farewell Friday to John F. Kennedy Jr., remembered by his uncle as a young man of wit and grace who, like his father, “had every gift but length of years.”

Continuing a sad tradition that has seen him take charge through decades of family tragedy, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) delivered a eulogy at a private memorial Mass for his 38-year-old nephew and for 33-year-old Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr.’s bride of three years. President Clinton, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton were among 315 mourners at St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church, where John’s sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, is a parishioner and where their mother, the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, often worshiped.

From the first day of his life, Sen. Kennedy told the mourners, the son of President Kennedy was a public figure.

“He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it,” the senator said in remarks made public by his office.

The sense that John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife were almost personal acquaintances brought hundreds of people to the streets near the church.

The affair was intensely private yet was covered in minute detail by television cameras lurking a block away, satisfying the decades-old public fascination with the Kennedy clan.

“I’m here to pay my respects to a young man I have known since he was born,” said Patti Avallone, who acknowledged she had never met Kennedy. Avallone, a middle school principal from West Haven, Conn., took a funeral day off from work and rode the train 90 miles to stand on a scorching Park Avenue sidewalk. “I felt I would be closer to the families if I was here.”

John and Carolyn Kennedy and her 34-year-old sister Lauren Bessette were killed one week ago when the small plane Kennedy was piloting crashed into the sea near Martha’s Vineyard. Their ashes were scattered at sea Thursday. A service will be held today for Lauren Bessette in the family’s hometown of Greenwich, Conn.

Mourners Among Elite of Politics, Journalism

Friday’s service drew political leaders as well as leaders from John Kennedy’s own line of endeavor, journalism. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) were present, as were newswomen Diane Sawyer (with her husband, writer-director Mike Nichols) and Christiane Amanpour (with her husband, State Department spokesman James Rubin). Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner also was among the mourners.

Dr. Richard Freeman and his wife, Ann, stepfather and mother of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette, walked in with Lauren’s twin, Lisa, their only surviving child. William Bessette, the girls’ father, also attended.

All in black, and virtually all wearing sunglasses to shield them from the fierce sun as they made their way to the church, there were Kennedys as young as John Kennedy’s 6-year-old nephew, John Schlossberg, and as old as his septuagenarian aunts, Jean Kennedy Smith, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Ethel Skakel Kennedy.

There were cousins, dozens of them. Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend flew up with President Clinton. Maria Shriver was joined by her husband, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ted Kennedy Jr. and Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) were accompanied by their mother, Joan Bennett Kennedy.

It was Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg who insisted on limiting the ceremony to those closest to her brother and sister-in-law. One by one, limousines and vans carrying the guests, who were issued invitation numbers, made their way past police barricades on Park Avenue toward the stately Gothic church on East 88th Street.

The number on a vehicle carrying Muhammad Ali was initially obscured, and the boxing titan was momentarily detained before a police officer recognized him. Maurice Tempelsman, the companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her later years, walked. Lee Radziwill, Onassis’ sister, was also there.

The Rev. Charles O’Byrne, a family friend, officiated at the Mass. O’Byrne also presided over the September 1996 wedding of John and Carolyn Kennedy at a simple country church on Cumberland Island, off the Georgia coast. O’Byrne was also there Thursday as the couple’s ashes were scattered at sea.

The son of the slain president was one of this country’s most famous bachelors until his marriage to the elegant fashion publicist. He was trained as a lawyer but practiced only briefly before launching a magazine that attempted to bridge politics and entertainment. Though celebrated as a sportsman and an icon of glamour, he was known as a young man who took public transit and wrote thank-you notes for the smallest favors.

Sen. Kennedy’s eulogy was filled with love and poigance--and also humor. He recounted how John, who was helping him in his 1994 Senate campaign, had alerted campaign workers that a mystery companion would be joining him on a trip. Rather than a romantic interest, the aides discovered that it was a German shepherd named Sam.

“He had amazing grace. He accepted who he was, but he cared more about what he could and should become. . . ,” he said. “He was a boy who grew into a man with a zest for life and a love of adventure. He was a pied piper who brought us all along.”

He lauded his nephew for his quiet charity work and commitment to public service, expressed in George, his political magazine. And he paid glowing tribute to Onassis for raising him so well amid the glare of extraordinary public interest.

‘Still Becoming the Person He Would Be’

“John was one of Jackie’s two miracles,” the senator said. “He was still becoming the person he would be and doing it by the beat of his own drummer. He had only just begun.”

Quoting from William Butler Yeats’ “In Memory of Maj. Robert Gregory,” he said: “We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to ‘comb gray hair,’ with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years.”

Fashion executive Hamilton South gave a eulogy for Carolyn Kennedy, and her mother read from “Facts of Faith,” a meditation by Henry Scott Holland. Hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean was the soloist, performing the reggae anthem “Many Rivers to Cross.” A gospel choir sang “Amazing Grace,” and the worshipers joined in for the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

A member of the gospel choir, John Adams, said after the service that “they conducted the ceremony to celebrate his life rather than mourn his death.”

Helped by her husband, Edwin Schlossberg, and by her children--Rose, 11, Tatiana, 9, and John, known as Jack, 6--Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg lit a candle for her brother and sister-in-law. She also read from “The Tempest.”

None of this was visible to a crowd that fell still as dignitaries arrived for the service. New York is perpetually noisy--a point of urban pride--but for this occasion this part of the city donned mourning manners.

“John would have been thankful, I believe, for this outpouring of grief,” said Kathleen McBride, 36, who knew Kennedy through her volunteer work with the Special Olympics, a Kennedy family charity.

Two hours before the 11 a.m. service, spectators staked out spots as close as police allowed. Annette Miller, a New York school psychologist, said she felt compelled to come. “My son and daughter are the exact age of John and Caroline,” Miller said. “When their father died, I was with my kids in the kitchen making dinner. I’m Jewish. It was the Sabbath. I was preparing chicken. I’ll never forget that moment.”

Twins Louise and Andrea Masano said they had known John Kennedy casually for about 15 years. They called him the antithesis of some stuck-up movie star.

“Everyone brags in New York. He never bragged,” said Louise, an advertising executive. “He always asked about you.”

Andrea, who is in the fashion business, said: “This guy that you would see around--you know, ‘Hi, John, how are you?’--I keep forgetting, people in China know him.”

Speaking Portuguese, German, Spanish and an assortment of Asian and Eastern European languages, spectators talked about the scion of the famous family.

“It’s like that movie, ‘The Truman Show,’ ” said Sachiko Nakagome of Tokyo. “You watch someone grow up in front of your eyes for 38 years, you feel like you know him.”

When the church bells tolled to mark the end of the Mass, those who did know John F. Kennedy Jr., those who shared his life directly, traveled three blocks for a luncheon at the Convent of the Sacred Heart School, where Caroline was educated.

The Clintons did not stay for the reception. But as gifts for the Kennedys and the Bessettes, they brought three albums filled with pictures of the family, including of a visit John and Carolyn Kennedy made to the White House in 1998. Clinton often has credited his own White House meeting with President Kennedy in 1963 as the spark that made him want to become president, and in recent years, the Clintons have grown close to the extended Kennedy family.

Walking silently down a cordoned-off street to the memorial reception, that family formed a mournful phalanx Friday.

“God bless you, John and Carolyn,” Sen. Kennedy said inside the church. “We love you and we always will.”

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Photos, video and graphics on the plane crash and memorial services are available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/kennedy