'A warm-hearted, vivacious, vital person with great charm'

Late Dot Tubridy's memories of Ethel Kennedy

The death last Thursday of Ethel Kennedy, widow of the late American Democratic politican, Robert Kennedy, at the age of 96, recalls her friendship with the late Dot Tubridy, whose relationship with the Kennedy family was featured at an exhibition in Trim five years ago. Ethel and Robert's daughter, Courtney, travelled to Trim to open the summer exhibition organised by Trim Tourism Network, along with her cousin, Sydney Lawford McKelvy, daughter of Patricia Kennedy, on the first anniversary of Ms Tubridy's death.

Subtitled 'Trim, Ireland and the Kennedy Clan'' the exhibition showed letters, photographs, and showjumping memorabilia associated with Dot Tubridy and her husband, Captain Michael Tubridy, a showjumper who died in a riding accident at Trimblestown Stud, Kildalkey, in 1953.

The Tubridys had become friends with Robert and Ethel Kennedy through Michael's showjumping, and the Kennedys invited Dot to America after her husband's death, beginning an enduring lifetime friendship with the entire clan.

The original association between Dorothy and Michael Tubridy and Robert and Ethel Kennedy was through horses, so it is not surprising that one past time enjoyed by Dot when she joined the Kennedys near Washington was pony riding with the children.

“Someone asked me the other day, what was the most exciting moment in my recent three weeks’ holidays with the Robert Kennedys of Washington,” she wrote in 1964.

“Believe it or not, it was the morning I took a pony ride with Ethel and her two youngest children,” she continued.

“With gay abandon, Ethel harnessed a very young untried and exceedingly frisky pony to a cart, and alternately driven by Michael, aged four, and Kerry aged three, we careered across the fields; took gate posts by a hair’s breadth; sped along the main Washington road, with heavy trucks to the left and fast cars to the right; and finishing up driving along a bank with a sheer drop on either sides.

“I counted it my lucky morning that we arrived home safely and in one piece. I also came to the conclusion that none of the Kennedy clan knows the meaning of fear - and that the competitive spirit is very strong – ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’.”

Dot said the Kennedys’ day usually started with morning Mass.

“Bob often doesn’t get home in time for the children’s supper, but Ethel and the children eat together and say the rosary together – each child giving out part of a decade, so that they will “each get a chance.”

There were seven high-spirited children in the Kennedy’s Georgian home, perched on a hill amid five rolling acres, outside the main Virginia-Washington Road.

The children had a small ‘dunking’ pool, and a host of pets including horses, donkeys, dogs, ducks and a pet lamb. They also had a tree house and a doll’s house.

Breakfast for the young Kennedy fry consisted of cereal, orange juice and pancakes, Dot wrote.

“They eat their lunch in school, are collected by their mother at 3.30 and spend most of the afternoon doing homework. Supper at 6 o’clock, when they all eat steak, salad and chocolate ice-cream. The Kennedys believe in allowing the younger fry to express their views at this one meal of the day. Zero hour for bedtime is 7.30.”

Dot wrote that singing together is always encouraged with the children.

“If you are a visitor from France, ‘Frere Jacques’ can be heard, and of course, during my stay, we always had a little of ‘Is Cailin Deas Me’.”

She described Ethel as “a warm-hearted vicacious vital person with more than her share of charm, and qualities every woman would possess.”

“Bob is a serious-minded deep-thinking person with a wonderful sincere quality which his friends value so highly. To me, he is a person of Black and White, seeing things clearly and pursuing everything with great determination.”

Ethel Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel in Chicago in April 1928 to a wealthy family, and married Bobby Kennedy in 1950. They had 11 children, the last, Rory, born after her father's assassination in the 1968 Presidential election campaign. Two of her children predeceased her. Her funeral took place yesterday (Monday) in Centerville, Massachusetts, USA.