The Kennedy kids were punished in the closet, says only living sibling (2024)

• Jean Kennedy, the only living sibling of John F Kennedy, shares stories of her family in her new memoirThe Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy
• As second youngest of nine siblings in the family, little did Jean know her siblings would go on to occupy major political offices
• Parents Joseph and Rose married in 1914 and began their family in Brookline, Massachusetts
• They then moved to Bronxville, New York, to escape Irish Catholic discrimination and to be closer to Joseph's work in New York City
• The family also had a home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where they spent summers
• Rose would punish her kids by sending them to a time out in her closet
• Throughout their childhood, the kids were taught in the Catholic church, had to do chores around the house and were all forced to get jobs

There were once nine Kennedy children living under the roof of parents Joseph P and Rose Kennedy, the most prominent family in American politics in the 20th century.

Only one is left: Jean Kennedy, now 88, is the last living sibling of president John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy. She was thesecond youngest in the family (Teddy, who died in 2009 at age 77 was the youngest).

As children, the Kennedy kids were ruled by faith and prayer, punished by time outs in their mother's closet, and forbidden cookies when too fat and given an extra helping of mashed potatoes when to thin.

'Mother and Dad were destined to have a gaggle of children. We would not have been complete if they had stopped at two or four or even six. Nine of us we had to be,' Jean Kennedy Smith writes in her memoir, The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy, to be published Tuesday.

'Even though I was there through it all, it is hard for me to comprehend that I was growing up with brothers who would eventually occupy the highest offices of our nation, including president of the United States,' she adds.

'At the time, they were simply my playmates. They were the source of my amusem*nt and the objects of my admiration,' she says.'I can say without reservation that I do not remember a day in our childhood without laughter'.

'For those few short years under the same roof, before separation and war, our family was together and we were one. These were happy times.I never felt alone.'

Summer began in June when the family headed to the 'big white house' facing the sea in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

When Joseph was at home, his morning began with a horseback ride through nearby cranberry bogs joined by Teddy, child number nine.

Rose began her day driving to St Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis for daily Mass.

Eunice, Bobby or Jean sometimes joined her, and other times they stayed burrowed in their pillows knowing whatever the day was going to bring would be exciting.

As for house rules, Rose justified them by frequently quoting the Gospel of Luke: 'To whom much has been given, much is expected.'

'There's no whining in this house' was the mantra set down by Joseph - to whine was not only selfish but also boring.

To keep track of her brood, Rose kept all their stats on index cards that were updated weekly: names of godparents, vaccinations, dental appointments, any illnesses or broken bones, as well as height and weight.

Joe, born in 1915, was baby number one and quickly became first at everything - championship trophy in football, dean's list at Harvard, head of every activity he joined. All the younger kids wanted to follow in his footsteps.

John - who went by Jack in the family - followed two years later with what Rose described as an 'elfin quality'.

The boy - who went on to be the president of the United States - was sickly with the typical childhood diseases often and spent that time reading - developing a lifelong love of books.

Though different in personality, John and Joe were best friends.

Rosemary was the third and 'only as I grew up did I realize that Rosemary had challenges that the rest of us did not have. The only words the doctors had to describe her condition were 'mental retardation"', Jean writes.

She struggled in school but 'in the summer, she was just one of the gang'.

Kathleen was the second girl and nicknamed 'Kick' because she kicked off her covers in the morning.

Kick, like Rosemary, was close to their father, but she traveled in a pack with Joe, John and her girlfriends.

Eunice came in at number five, and rattled the boys with her competitive sporting abilities. Eunice had a special love for Rosemary.

Patricia, 'Pat', was number six and had a great love of the dramatic arts.

Number seven was Bobby who had compassion for everyone and every rabbit, dog, pig, chipmunk, frog. He longed to be a part of the Joe and John pack.

Jean came in at number eight, 'the sidekick, the partner in crime to the antics of everyone around me'.

The last baby was Teddy, 'adored by all', with chubby cheeks, lovable, carefree, and the happiest on the sea.

Jean writes: 'At the helm were Mother and Dad. They were our leaders, teachers and champions ….and into life we marched.'

Joseph and Rose married in 1914 and began their family in Brookline, Massachusetts, where four children were born before moving to Bronxville, New York, to escape Irish Catholic discrimination and to be closer to Joseph's work in New York City.

The house in Hyannis Port was chosen as the summer home because Joseph believed, 'If you want your children to come home, buy a house by the sea'. And so they did.

'The nine of us always came back to the sea,' Jean writes.

In Bronxville, when Cardinal Pacelli stopped by to visit at the urging of New York's Cardinal Francis Spellman, a friend of Joseph's, Rose had a plaque made and mounted on the back of the sofa where the future Pope once rested his bum.

For the family strict education began in the nursery and 'was reinforced in the closet'.

When Rose had suffered enough antics from one child, she sent them to the closet.

'She made it clear that we were not allowed to have our own way or contradict her,' Jean writes.

Her punishments were 'for our own good'.

When Jean took a chocolate chip cookies from a plate on the kitchen table, off she was sent to the closet in Rose's bedroom.

Their Irish nanny, Kathleen 'Kikoo' Conboy, bellowed at the kids if she didn't like what they were up to and reported them to Rose, who then sent them to the closet.

Kikoo aggressively tried to get Bobby to go to sleep by banging his head against the wall, Jean says. But the kids' other nurse, Keela Cahill, stepped in and stopped Kikoo's head banging.

Kikoo lined up all nine every Saturday night to record their heights, marking it on the door's molding. She then weighed each one.

If someone gained weight, there was no sympathy from Kikoo and she'd say her usual declaration, 'You bold stump', and make sure they had no cookies for the rest of the week.

If someone lost weight, they got an extra serving of mashed potatoes.

It was in the closet that Jean viewed Rose's wardrobe collected from frequent shopping trips stateside and abroad.

With the door open a crack, she viewed Rose's wardrobe of 'linen, silk, tweed and neatly pressed cottons; trim suits, prim hats; a tidy stack of scarves, line after line of perfectly placed shoes; a neat row of leather handbags; and a rainbow of evening gowns'.

One time 'I stuck my grubby toes into mother's ivory satin shoes, the ones she had just brought home from Paris.

'If she had been there to see me handling her shoes that way, she might have collapsed.'

The nine had to learn they 'were not the center of the universe…and were here to serve a greater good'.

So teaching what was right and wrong was left up to the Catholic Church.

They were ruled by faith, prayer, the sign of the cross, and a rosary in every pocket when traveling. They were to never miss Mass on Sundays and special days.

Their religious education was always focused on faith and service.

Joseph's role model was his father and at eight years old, young Joe won an oak bookcase from the Larkin Soap Company by selling the most soap and collecting the coupons inside.

He sold newspapers to workers on the docks in East Boston and peanuts and candy to the passengers on the boats.

He then went on to Harvard and became the youngest bank president when he was 25 years old.He expected the same from his own children.

'After you have done the best you can,' Jean recalls her father saying, 'then the hell with it.'

And because the family was so large, every expense had to be justified.

Rose loved to play golf and never came home without all the balls she went out with - even if that meant endless searching in the rough for a mis-hit ball.

The kids were told there was no slouching on chores and were all forced to get a job.

Teddy mucked stables at the barn in Osterville on Cape Cod while Jean volunteered at the hospital in Hyannis making beds, changing bedpans, sweeping floors and helping the nurses.

It inspired her to want to be a doctor but her father told her: 'No, women aren't doctors. That's not a suitable profession for a woman.'

He believed that women should be homemakers and not pursue professions traditionally held by men.

In the ho me, the rules were no whining, give back, and use your talents and minds.

'We owed something to one another and to the world,' Jean writes.

It was on the sea and sailing where the nine children learned how to compete and found a love of winning - with Eunice being one of the fiercest competitors.

'It was all around us and within us, the sea. Saltwater was in our blood, in our genes,' Jean writes.

When Joseph purchased a second sailing boat and named it One More, 'the die was cast for Teddy'.

As a boy, he had no need for a pet dog or cat - One More was his faithful companion.

Rose wouldn't admit it but the children believed she had a soft spot for Bobby, the seventh child surrounded by girls.

Jean writes that being encircled by females perhaps made him more sensitive and intuitive.

Briefly he was a paperboy but tiring of that early morning ritual, he prevailed upon his father's chauffeur to drive him along his route. That worked until Rose's found out.

Bobby loved all animals and doted on his large pink-and-black spotted pig, Porky, and persuaded the chauffeur to let Porky ride in the back seat with him to school.

He felt such a deep connection to Saint Francis, who loved every little creature, he asked for Francis to be his middle name.

Another love was his stamp collection and he saved the stamps from his parent's daily incoming international mail.

Meanwhile, Joseph served as president Roosevelt's first chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission and alerted the president, a stamp collector himself, to Bobby's interest. FDR immediately sent Bobby a letter and a stamp album.

Rose was always encouraging lessons in piano, golf, sailing, French, painting, ice skating, tennis - even if the activity was of no interest to that child. Practice influenced confidence.

Rose gave Jean the 'gift of dolls'. To build up the little girl's collection, she asked Joseph to send a letter to the other American diplomats around the world asking them to send two dolls dressed in their country's native dress.

Suddenly that collection ballooned to 200 dolls - it is nowhoused in the basem*nt of the Hyannis Port house.

Teddy fell in love with art at an early age and when headed to Maine one summer, he stopped to visit the home of American painter, Andrew Wyeth. A friendship evolved and he returned to visit every summer for the rest of his life.

In 1964, he broke his back in a plane crash and for six months was confined in an apparatus that held him motionless in the center of his body.

The frame was rotated every few hours and while hanging upside down he painted for hours on canvases beneath him.

He painted what he loved: the house at the Cape, sailboats, the sea. He never stopped painting.

Rose often traveled by herself in search of solitude. Sometimes she asked one of the children to accompany her.

She often went to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts – where she and Joseph went during their early courtship days.

A favorite game at dinner was 'If you were president, what would you do?'

What began as sport inspired by the times and her husband connected to the Roosevelt administration, became prophetic.

Dinnertime rituals began promptly at 6.30pm when everyone was to arrive in the parlor, bathed, in a clean outfit, with his or her hair combed.

Rose played the piano while everyone sang. At 7.00pm, she ceased playing and announced that dinner was served and all filed into the dining room.

The evening meal started promptly at 7.15.

Rose loved to walk but turned to the car when she went off to daily Mass. She'd call one of the children to drive her.

Tiring of that early morning excursion, they decided to pool their money and buy her a small coupe for her birthday.

They hoped she'd become independent. Later that afternoon, she announced she would drive herself to Mass but expected to be driven everywhere else.

'You will continue to take me as always. Do you understand?' Rose said sweetly smiling.

When Joseph was appointed by president Roosevelt as US ambassador to the Court of St James in 1938, he moved the family to London. Joe Jr and John stayed behind as they studied at Harvard.

It was an exciting time, enrollment at Sacred Heart Convent schools, Rosemary and Kick making their social debut at the Court, an audience with Pope Pius XII – until Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939 and they boarded an ocean liner headed back to the United States.

Rosemary and Joseph stayed for a while, but he soon decided to send Rosemary home.

In August 1944, 'fate determined that our family would never be whole again when the news arrived that Joe had been lost,' Jean wrote.

A pilot in the Navy, Joe Jr had volunteered for one more flying assignment over Europe when his plane was hit.

The family was heartbroken and Joseph questioned his faith.

But three years earlier in 1941, Joseph had decided that Rosemary's learning disabilities might be helped by a new procedure, a lobotomy.

Joseph thought he had received the best medical advice and connected with the expert, Dr Watts to perform the galling procedure.

But it all went tragically wrong and Jean writes, 'It is still not clear what happened'.

'Rosemary lost most of her ability to walk and communicate,' she adds.'We had been so hopeful, and were so devastated.'

They later learned that Rose Williams, sister of playwright Tennessee Williams suffered the same fate at the hands of the butcher doctors.

Rosemary was sent off to be cared for by the sisters of St Coletta at the School for Exceptional Children in Wisconsin.

Her family visited her two to three times a year, and she came east in the summer.

'Dad remained heartbroken over the tragic outcome of her surgery for the rest of his life,' Jean writes.

One by one, all nine were leaving the house.

Jean wanted to follow Eunice to Stanford University but Rose insisted she stay with her Catholic education one more year and enroll at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart.

Her roommate turned out to be Ethel Skakel and they became fast friends and family when Ethel married Bobby.

More tragedy struck in 1948 when Kick was killed in a plane crash in France.

Then John's assassination came in 1963, and Bobby's in 1968 - 'these early tragedies were devastating for all of us, yet encouraged by our parents' faith and example, we carried on'.

Jean writes: 'Joe, Jack, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Bobby, and Ted - all are now gone…We lost Dad, our giant and our leader in 1969, following a series of strokes. Mother remained with us many years longer, until the age of 104 in 1995.

'It is sometimes difficult to comprehend that I am the only member of our original family still living.'

Sometimes…'it is impossible to realize that they will not grace the earth and your life again', Jean concludes.