Senator Ted Kennedy Passes at 77 Years Old

In a poignant farewell for his family and thousands of mourners, the elaborate funeral procession for Senator Edward M. Kennedy is expected to begin from his family’s Cape Cod compound Thursday afternoon on the 72-mile journey north to Boston, where the motorcade will wind around city landmarks that were important in the life of Mr. Kennedy and his family.

Mr. Kennedy died at age 77 late Tuesday night in Hyannis Port, Mass., after battling brain cancer for 15 months.

A Senate stalwart and the longest-surviving brother of a tragic and triumphant political clan, Mr. Kennedy was hailed by many who knew him as a man as fiercely dedicated to public service as he was to his extended family.

Accordingly, the day’s events began in Hyannis Port with a private Catholic mass for the family that was closed to the press. A flag flew at half-staff in the center of the circular driveway surrounded by clusters of fading brown hydrangeas.

Around noon Eastern time, family members entered the white-shingled, green-shuttered house, The Associated Press reported, including Mr. Kennedy’s son Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman; Caroline Kennedy, daughter of Mr. Kennedy’s brother John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his sister Eunice, who died in early August.

The Mass, according to a pool reporter, was held overlooking the ocean in a room traditionally reserved for family masses, but one the Kennedy clan called its “fun room.” Father Donald MacMillan from Boston College officiated.

About an hour later, the hearse, a motorcade of black limousines, hulking black Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicles and motorcycle police from both local and state agencies were still lined up outside the house.

Members of the honor guard, with nine representatives of all branches of service from Washington D.C were stationed in front of the hearse.

Mourners gathered along the streets of Hyannis Port and in the Boston Common on a refreshingly cool, sunny late summer day to view the procession Thursday afternoon. The planned route was scheduled to end late in the afternoon at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Mass., where Mr. Kennedy’s body will lie in repose for public viewing Thursday evening and Friday. The funeral mass will take place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston on Saturday morning, with President Obama delivering a eulogy. Mr. Kennedy is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington on Sunday, near his brothers John and Robert. The motorcade on Thursday is due to reach Boston around 2:30 p.m., heading first to St. Stephen’s Church in the city’s North End, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and her funeral mass was celebrated, according to a statement from Mr. Kennedy’s office.

From there, the motorcade will cross over the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the park Mr. Kennedy helped create, and pass by Faneuil Hall, the colonial-era landmark where Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston will ring the bell 47 times — once for each year Mr. Kennedy served in the Senate.

It will also pass by 122 Bowdoin Street, where Mr. Kennedy had his first office as an assistant district attorney. His brother John lived on Bowdoin Street while running for Congress in 1946.

From there, the procession will pass by the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, where Senator Kennedy maintained an office in recent years, and travel to Dorchester Street in South Boston and then to his brother’s presidential library and museum, which Senator Kennedy helped to build.

The visitation will be held at the library’s Stephen E. Smith Center. The Boston Globe reported that since Mr. Kennedy’s death, museum officials have been hastily constructing an exhibit in the center’s foyer, with photographs and artifacts relating to his speeches, including his 1968 eulogy for his brother Robert F. Kennedy and his Democratic National Convention addresses from 1980 to 2008.

By late morning, crowds had gathered at the library, and mourners had already left American flags, flowers and a stuffed teddy bear, according to The A.P.

James Jenner, a 28-year-old culinary student from Boston, placed his Red Sox cap at the impromptu memorial.

“It was Teddy’s home team,” Mr. Jenner said, according to The A.P.

“It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap. It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate.”

Source (article): NYTIMES

Source (pictures): OURCOMMONCONCERN, LEWISCOUNTYDEMOCRATS, I.DAILYMAIL