Ted Kennedy: 1932 - 2009By Vince Bzdek
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 27, 2009; 12:00 AM
The longtime senator had a deep, abiding love affair with this city, and Bostonians on Wednesday were repaying the affection.
"I volunteered for one of Ted's campaigns when I was 8 or 9 years old," said Elizabeth Doyle, a Dorchester resident who visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday afternoon to pay her respects, a bouquet of yellow daisies in hand. "I've been influenced by him all my life."
"I have a home on Cape Cod, so the Kennedy mystique is very powerful for me," said another mourner, Barbara Connor. Asked why she made the trip to the museum, she said she wanted to make sure her name was in the book of condolences set up in the foyer.
Rachel Day, a spokeswoman for the library, said a trickle of Bostonians came to sign the book Wednesday, but she expected many more Thursday at the public wake to be held in the library's Smith Hall, a room with a majestic view of Boston and the Back Bay.
The procession bringing Kennedy's body to Boston on Thursday, tentatively scheduled to leave Hyannis Port at 10 a.m., will take a circuitous route through the city, passing the senator's favorite haunts, such as Faneuil Hall, before arriving at the museum in the late morning or early afternoon.
Kennedy's body will lie in repose at his brother's presidential library for two days before his funeral Saturday morning at the historic Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
The public wake is expected to stretch into the evening Thursday and resume on Friday at 10 a.m. An invitation-only memorial service will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. Tribute areas have also been set up at City Hall in Boston, the JFK museum in Hyannis Port and Ted Kennedy's office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington.
In Hyannis Port on Wednesday, as many as 1,000 people, according to news reports, came to the Kennedy compound to pay their respects. A sprinkling of flowers and cards were left in front of the 10-foot hedge that separates the compound from the outside world. Someone left a red buoy with the words "R.I.P. Teddy" painted on it.
Kennedy grandchildren were spotted throughout the day skipping through the compound; otherwise, the storied family stayed cloistered within the white clapboard houses.
Many of the visitors to Hyannis Port noted the lightship anchored in Nantucket Sound, seeing its shining presence just east of the compound as a worthy tribute to a man who so loved the sea.
Back in Boston, the handful of people gathered at the JFK museum recalled Ted Kennedy with a personal affection that went far beyond the respect earned by many politicians.
To view the source of this information article, Go to the link provided: By Vince Bzdek Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 27, 2009; 12:00 AM
