In the Family Tradition

This Monday would have been their 18th wedding anniversary, an occasion for a party in the old frenetic Kennedy style at Hickory Hill, with children and pets much in evidence and perhaps friends in evening clothes ending up spluttering in the swimming pool. Instead, a memorial Mass for Robert Kennedy would be held two days later at a small nearby church.

Throughout the week, in public at least, Ethel Kennedy remained gallantly cheerful. Even when parades of strangers appeared at the McLean, Va., estate to pay their respects, Ethel talked to them all. Almost daily, accompanied by her son Joe, 15, and often by two or three other older children, she visited the grave at Arlington, knelt, prayed, then returned to their 15-room house still radiating youthful life.

"Kennedy touch" (forward passing legal anywhere on the field) continued on the broad, sloping lawn, with Astronaut John Glenn and then Campaign Bodyguard William Barry taking Bobby's place as quarterback. The children swam in the pool whenever the soggy weather improved. But Ethel Kennedy's best therapy was the exuberance of Christopher, 4, Matthew, 3, and Douglas, 15 months, who, too young to understand what had happened, continued in their usual bouncy style, restoring some feeling of normalcy to the stricken household.

Time & Courage. Senator Edward Kennedy shuttled between Hyannisport Mass., where he comforted his aged parents, and Hickory Hill, where, as the new head of the family, he had to sort out the details of where some of his brother's children will attend school next year and make other domestic arrangements. Normally, Bobby's brood would have been planning last week for a summer in Hyannisport, a logistical move approximating the establishment of an Antarctic outpost. Now the move will be delayed for at least a week.

Ethel requested that all the tens of thousands of letters of condolence be answered; she sent telegrams to the families of two bystanders killed by a train as they waited for Kennedy's funeral train to pass through Elizabeth, N.J., and ordered a huge toy dog for a three-year-old injured in the accident. She also found the time and courage to help close down her husband's Washington campaign headquarters, shaking hands with each volunteer and thanking him for his effort.

Most of Kennedy's abundantly talented staff were still too numb to sort out future plans for themselves. "I'll stick around Washington for a while," said Political Adviser Fred Dutton, "then I think I'll clear out. There's no need to try to re-create the past. When it's gone, it's gone." Attorney Frank Mankiewicz, the press secretary who performed with such grim efficiency in the hours after the shooting, said sadly: "I can't do this again--not for anyone else."

At week's end, Ted and Rose Kennedy taped a five-minute television message of thanks to the nation for its condolences. As Patriarch Joseph Kennedy sat speechless beside them in a wheelchair on the lawn of the Hyannisport compound, his youngest and last surviving son said: "It has been the people themselves, with outstretched hands of sympathy and strength, that have most touched the hearts of the members of our family. It is the ones who could give the least who have given the most."

Then, in level tones reflecting her steely spirit, Rose Kennedy declared: "We shall honor him not with useless mourning and vain regrets for the past, but with firm and indomitable resolutions for the future: acting now to relieve the starvation of people in this country, working now to aid the disadvantaged and those helpless, inarticulate masses for whom he felt so deeply and for whom he worked long hours, night as well as day."

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