Have you ever watched a docuseries that drastically minimized the storylines of all the women so you got mad and fell down a hole of Google searching and then wrote a blog post about it?

No? Just me?

Well strap in, because I have some things to tell you about the Kennedy sisters.

Lucas and I have a longstanding tradition of watching documentaries on Sunday mornings and we recently finished American Dynasties: The Kennedys. It originally aired on CNN in 2018 so it’s kind of old news, but it called out to us (and technically it’s all old news because this is history we’re talking about). Lucas has been reading a lot of books about Henry Kissinger and I’ve been watching a lot of Rat Pack videos, so surely the Kennedys fall in the center of that venn diagram, right? (Barely, but go with it.)

It was an OK series overall, perfect for lazy Sunday mornings of tofu scram(ble) and too much coffee, but it left me with questions. Specifically: what about the Kennedy sisters?? We know all about the four brothers—Joe Jr, Jack, Bobby, and Ted—because they were all marked by tragedy, but the series only dabbled in the stories of the five daughters. And even then, just dabbled in their tragedies.

So here I am, up on my soapbox, to tell you all about them. I don’t mean this to be an extensive biography of each woman, but allow me to yell out some interesting facts about each of them, like an eager middle schooler who did a book report that no one asked for:

Rosemary Kennedy - 1918-2005

Rosemary has come to be known more recently as the “secret” Kennedy who was hidden away for decades. She developed many learning disabilities as a child, and instead of having her treated by a psychologist (which probably was itself unconventional in those days), her dad, Joseph, forced her to have a lobotomy at age 23. He didn’t even consult his wife. It made Rosemary’s situation much worse and she was unable to properly speak or walk for the rest of her life.

I wish I knew more, because she lived to the ripe old age of 86, and surely the next 63 years of her life were fascinating and still filled with some joy. I hate to define her only by her disabilities. I’ve been eyeing the book Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter for years, so maybe I will finally read it and then really give you a book report. I do know that she was an inspiration to many of her siblings who went on to fight for the rights of people with disabilities.

Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy - 1920-1947

Kathleen’s story, as presented in the series, is also mostly tragic. She was shunned by her Catholic parents after marrying a British Protestant (and a Marquess!), her new husband then died in WWII four months after they were married, and then, just four years later, Kathleen herself died in horrible plane crash. (Side note: so many horrible plane crashes in this family. See also: Joseph Jr, Ted, JFK Jr. Be careful with those private planes, ya’ll!)

Her story is certainly sad, especially because it sounds like she was mostly estranged from her parents when she died, but here are two of my favorite tidbits about her:

She worked for the Times-Herald paper in DC where one of her jobs was assisting with a column called “Did You Happen to See…,” which profiled government officials. It sounds like it was a Page Six for government and I would love to see what kind of gossip that entailed. It’s almost a foreshadowing of the magazine that her (also doomed) nephew, John Jr, would eventually launch. She eventually took over the column and also reviewed plays and movies.
While she lived in the UK, she was sassy lady-about-town and the Brits loved her. Apparently she was known to walk down the street while chewing gum and that’s the kind of thing rich people were aghast about in the 1940s. Here’s a quote I love (source) : “Lady Jean Ogilvy recalled a dinner party where Kick threw a bread roll down the table at a guest: ‘If someone else had done that, it might have been rude or shocking...but she had this way about her that made it seem an absolute liberation.’” Yes! Liberation through bread!!

Eunice Kennedy - 1921-2009

In the series, we learn how Eunice endlessly campaigned for her brothers, and not until the very last minutes of the very last episode does CNN casually drop in: “Oh by the way she also founded the Special Olympics.” Way to bury the lede on Eunice!

The Special Olympics had its roots in a summer camp that Eunice started literally in her own backyard. In the summer of 1962, she invited kids with intellectual disabilities to a summer day camp at her home in the DC suburbs. The camps soon expanded nationwide and started to focus on recreation, which then spun out into its own focus, and eventually became the first Special Olympic Summer Games. The first one was held in July 1968, just a month after her brother Robert was killed. She went on to receive a ton of honorary degrees and awards for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984—the highest civilian honor you can get in the US!

We also can’t forget that along with all of her social work, she was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mother-in-law. What were those Thanksgivings like??

Patricia Kennedy - 1924-2006

Patricia is highlighted in the documentary as being heavily involved in her brothers’ many political campaigns. She and her mother and sisters started hosting tea parties in people’s homes for Jack’s campaign for Congress in 1946. It was their way of turning campaigning into a nice casual chat about who Jack was as a person and to share stories about his childhood, which I’m sure helped make him seem more down-to-earth as a candidate. (Personally, they would have had me at free fancy sandwiches.) She went on to help Jack’s campaign for US senate in 1952, then for president in 1960.

But here’s the stuff that I find more exciting: in college, she was a theater kid, and as the JFK Library describes it, she “directed and acted in various plays and theatrical spectacles.” I would love to know what these “theatrical spectacles” entailed. Flash mobs? Dinner theater? Public breakdowns?

From there she went on to be a production assistant to NBC in New York, then moved to LA to work in as an assistant for various radio shows. She then married actor Peter Lawford, who was a rising star in Hollywood at the time, and who would come to be pals with Frank Sinatra and sometimes appear as part of the Rat Pack (see, there is a Rat Pack connection!).

After they divorced 12 years later, Patricia moved back to New York and seems to have left her production jobs behind. Her Wikipedia page says “Patricia wanted to be a film producer, a profession not readily open to young women in her time.” I can’t confirm if that’s true, but I like to imagine Patricia as an untapped Nancy Meyers who could have given us great rom-coms featuring women of a certain age. Instead, she founded the National Committee for the Liberal Arts, which arranges author lectures and scholarships. Also cool!

Jean Kennedy - 1928-2020

The first fun fact about Jean: she shared a birthday with her older sister Kathleen, as she was born on Kathleen’s 8th birthday in 1928. I hope they still each got their own cakes!

Jean also spent a lot of her youth campaigning for her brothers, but her real political time to shine came in 1993 when President Clinton chose her to be the 25th United States Ambassador to Ireland. She was committed to helping resolve conflict in Northern Ireland and her big move was allowing Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Fein, to visit the US in 1994. The internet has many thoughts on this: some say it was critical to the future success of the peace process, others criticized her for supporting his visa, and some say that she didn’t do anything and that Clinton was the one who promised the visa long before she did. So I don’t know what side of the internet to believe, but I’ll still applaud Jean for her work.

Beyond her role as an ambassador, she was also a big advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. In 1974, she founded Very Special Arts, an organization that helps people with disabilities participate in the creative arts. She also traveled around the world to advocate for more inclusion in the arts. And you know what she got for that work? Oh, just a little old Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. I like to think that she and Eunice casually wore their medals to family events, like “Oh, the rest of you don’t have one of these? Pity.”

My most favorite fact about Jean is towards the bottom of her Wikipedia page: “Smith was listed as Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith in the credits of the 2012 movie Lincoln for portraying a ‘woman shouter’".

YES JEAN! SHOUT IT OUT!

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PHEW I feel so much better now that you know all these very important facts. Here are some sources if you want to fact-check me/fall down a history hole with me:

Did I miss anything crucial? Did I get something wrong? Probably! Please let me know in a comment and tell me your favorite Kennedy facts. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to learn more about Papa Joseph’s time in Hollywood and Mama Rose’s secret to living to nearly 105.