Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy - Mother of The Kennedys, 1973

on the afternoon of the 22nd of november 1963 rose fitzgerald kennedy left her house in hyannisport she was alone as she walked along the pathway to the beach her feet sinking into the soft sand she had just received word from dallas that her son president john fitzgerald kennedy had been killed on the beach she paced up and down fighting her grief until she was fully in control during the days that followed she knew that her family would look to her as they had always looked to her for strength and encouragement she was determined that they would not look in vain [Music] foreign no she's always very strong in a crisis i think she's always stealed herself to not fall apart in a crisis because she thinks i think it's a very bad example for her children and for other people and she's always had the philosophy that she's had so much in her life that that to have a tragedy is not something that you fall apart on that's life if you don't have any tragedies and life isn't fair at all so she uh [Applause] and accepted it faith has been of course a great great comfort and a great inspiration i think it's the greatest gift as i said to one of my grandchildren a little while ago it's the greatest gift god has given me many gifts through the years nearly every gift i think and still i think that's the greatest because i've always uh trusted him no matter what has happened i've always been firm in my belief that he would give me the graces he would give me the strength to bear these tragedies and that everything would uh that we would go along and uh i think that's very important for mother because if a mother collapses or mother submits to discouragement then what does the family do well i don't think she's really ever a day goes by when she's not reminded or conscious of the tragedies of of all my brothers and my sisters as well but i one goal that she established was that she was going to live for the living and i'm sure she probably have heard her make that comment and i think that this has been something which has been terribly meaningful to all the other children and to all the grandchildren as well and i think all of us are very conscious of of that sadness and tragedy has been a part of uh of her life but she she every time you meet her or with her or talk with her you're very much conscious of the the you know so the joy of existence in life she hasn't got time for for uh self-pity and i think during the most difficult times of tragedy in our family she's been the one that's kind of lifted us all up and i think this has been part of the reason why uh we're we're always not only in love with her but have such respect for the kennedy story began in the port of boston where irish immigrants came in their hundreds of thousands during the potato famine of the 1840s among them were two men from the county of wexford patrick kennedy and thomas fitzgerald the early years in boston were not easy for the irish newcomers crowded into slums along the waterfront they were happy to accept any work live in any conditions thomas fitzgerald's son john was born in a tenement house his playgrounds as he grew up were the dark side streets and alleys but he knew that beyond the waterfront was a world of opportunity and that the son of a penniless immigrant could still hope to reach the highest position in the city of boston [Music] in december 1905 john fitzgerald achieved his ambition and was elected mayor of boston by his side throughout the campaign was his fifteen-year-old daughter rose reveling in the color and excitement of boston politics and even mayor fitzgerald's opponents had to admit he was colorful never happier than singing sweet adeline to his supporters in his fine tenor voice well i think it probably started with my father because he was in politics and all his life and my sons were at home that they used to uh in cambridge which is very near boston uh and uh they used to lunch with him every week uh and he loved to talk about boston he'd love to talk about the history of this country and boston is of course replete with things of historical interest it's very near conquered in lexington so they grew up in that atmosphere where they were interested in history they were interested in government and then they went to washington at an early age just as a little boy seeing uh the uh seeing congress and seeing the senate and of course my father had been in congress uh so it was sort of a natural interest and then of course i too was uh very much intrigued with uh with the politics i suppose you'd call it and we used to discuss very many of these things at the noonday meal if you notice now on the door here in the hall the declaration of independence is is pasted up there's pinned up there and i cut it out of the paper july 4th and then as the grandchildren came along i used to talk to them about it a little bit what names were on the paper and how brave and how fearless the colonists were to assert their independence under very difficult circumstances and uh then we picked out a few names of people who had come from boston would come from our institution so everything sort of tied in to stimulate their interest and their their devotion really because the boys grew older their father told them that they owned a great deal to this country and then sometimes i used to quote the words of saying luke of those who much has given much is expected and that they had had these advantages so they should use them for the common good of our humanity for something worthwhile and not to spend that time sunning in the rivieras yeah so that was uh instilled into their minds and hearts when they were quite young and fortunately they accepted it and they of course themselves were interested jax especially didn't have very good health so he read a great deal and then he used to discuss these some of these figures of history with us at the dining room table which was sort of the mecca for everyone to to expound their views uh of course he was not none of us were limited to american history we used to discuss routes in england and canada did did you feel the fact that the family had this catholic and irish background that this would necessarily limit the kind of political ambitions that you could have in america well not in america as a whole of course there had never been a catholic president as you knew so there was a certain prejudice against that idea i can remember campaigning myself and meeting someone in the south and suggesting that she vote for jack it was a woman i met on the street and he said i ain't going to have no pope coming over here running things and that was final and so they had that sort of fear i suppose or prejudice or whatever it was they didn't want a big catholic influence they didn't want the roman catholic church in october 1914 rose fitzgerald married joseph kennedy and came to live in this house in boston it is preserved today with all its original furniture including the bed where the future president of the united states was born for rose kennedy motherhood brought complete fulfillment some people find it rather dull but i think it's quite challenging and tremendously interesting to think that you have this precious little baby and what you say is going to influence him for the rest of his life and for time and for eternity he and his turn is going to influence other people and he hears the first words from his mother and she who tells him what's right and wrong in childish language at first and then of course in firm precepts later and then as they grow older you share their triumphs at school around the football field at the baseball field and then afterwards perhaps they go to school to college and then you take a part in that and that broadens your knowledge and expands your interests i think that it's the greatest role a woman can have the dining room table here as in all subsequent kennedy homes was the main forum for discussion and instruction mrs kennedy's daughter eunice remembers these discussions vividly well my mother of course was a very uh and is a very devout woman and she was anxious that all of us uh have a strong feeling about our religion so when we used to sit around at the dining room table i can remember she talked about say the feast day the feast of the assumption and she said what is the feast of the assumption what does it mean and what about the blessed mother and or the feast of the ascension of transfiguration and she'd talk about christmas in bethlehem and then she'd go to the map and show us where israel was and where the holy places were so constantly at meals she would refer to religious subjects and then it very often she'd take us into town i can remember for being about five or six years old going in for ice cream and then always on the way home she'd stop at church and you'd make a visit i used to take them walking in the morning before they were old enough to go to school because the nurse would be busy with the those days we didn't have diapers we didn't have the formulas prepared at any rate the nurse would be very busy so i would take them walking and then we would stop in at the church very often because i would think i wanted them to know that church was something for every day in the week it wasn't just for sunday just a special day a special hour that you should you could pray or you could talk to god anytime and he would be there he would listen to you he would give you advice or sympathy or whatever it was you felt you needed it was a good habit for them to cultivate when they were young well joe and jack were all the boys when they were little because we lived there near the church and could walk to the church and jack was so young that he could hardly take the book you see from one side of the office the other because he was hardly tall enough to raise it up and then uh of course as we moved it meant that they couldn't walk to church so it's right down here for instance they couldn't walk and it was a disadvantage while in the early days it was very easy for them and then i did mention that joe was an older boy new year's eve in switzerland which i thrilled me because i thought he'd be out at a gay party and he wasn't a gay party before and afterwards but he did manage to get away from midnight bars without any solicitation in my path and so they they came forward with these surprises with these little acts of the of the the right thing of doing the right thing which was really a great joy to us did the president and they of course as i said they weren't all little angels either they got into plenty plenty of difficulty problems their father extricated and in publicity in his publicity picture was a very tough hard man but with the family and with his with his children he was typically irish gentle and affectionism and with you also and with me oh yes definitely well they had a really extraordinary relationship uh my mother's writing autobiography and i said to her only last night i said mother i've read the book and you asked me for the criticism and i just think the main criticism you had i never criticized dad in the book how can you write 855 pages and never criticize dad and she said well what do you want me to criticize about him he was a perfect husband and he was a perfect father and i said but nobody will believe you can be married for 50 years and not fight and she said well i had nothing to fight about he did everything when i had a baby he'd send me and i'd be in the hospital he'd send me over special meals from a hotel so that i could eat well when i was tired out after the children he'd take me on a trip after i had each baby he'd take her he'd give me a little gift and he would go and he would help me raise them he'd go and visit the schools before they went especially the boys schools and i said well mother when you wanted to go out to dinner parties he always he didn't like to go out a lot weren't you now you're not going out all a good deal mall isn't that you fine some people say you're a late bloomer from 72 to 82. you've been going to uh going out a great deal more haven't you been frustrated all those years and she said not at all she said i made up my mind that if he wanted when he was around he wanted to stay and that's fine but he took me to meet toscanini and he'd take me to the concerts every saturday night and uh when we lived in france at the south of france we went out it was sufficiently there maybe you don't remember when we were growing up but later on we did and i balanced the times he wanted to stay at home at the times that he'd take me out there is nothing to criticize about your father in 1926 the kennedys went house hunting in hyannis port at that time hyannisport with its sandy beaches and elegant houses was becoming a rich man's playground but by 1926 joe kennedy himself was a very rich man indeed with interest in everything from shipbuilding to movie-making and while the kennedy fortune was growing so was the kennedy family in the summer of 1926 the two oldest joe and jack were 10 and 9 years of age then came kathleen rosemary eunice patricia and the baby robert jean and teddy were still to come already rosemary was showing signs of mental retardation the first real cloud on the family happiness but the others were healthy and fiercely competitive and they loved the swimming and sailing and the big comfortable house overlooking the harbour well i do my father was very competitive and i can remember racing i was quite a good sailor and i used to race a good deal maybe 14 races a week and sometimes i'd come in second and i'd be very pleased and my father would be just saying that's fine why didn't you come in first do you think that's a good attitude to him did you try and install that into your children um i think it was probably in our case because we were a large family and we could buoy each other up i think if you had an only child and you constantly said to him why aren't you first i think it might result in inferiority complexes you mentioned to me yesterday that i'd find your mother fairly tough when i spoke to her and did you experience that growing up that your mother was very strong person at home yes i don't think i use the word tough i think the word strong is a better description of my mother uh and i think she's uh she's very well disciplined and uh she's very uh as you have found out she's very uh interested in things that go on all the time she took my children for instance last evening and showed them the declaration of independence and the different signatures and tried to point out who what state these different people john hancock was from thomas jefferson was come so she tries to really keep up on everything all of the time even with the next generation were you conscious of her as a disciplining person at home somebody who imposed discipline or whom yes she had i think she was the probably uh stronger disciplinarian than my father would you have described she was at home across a good deal more than he was but she i think that's what would you have described your opinion as strict i think i would yeah that's that irish trade isn't that most irish mothers is pretty strict um you're quoted as saying we're computerized at a very early age but by a very compassionate computer and is that true what exactly do you mean by computerized uh well when i was describing my mother i think she had a very definite schedule for all of us we had uh uh all of us had our teeth straightened for example it took seven years but we all went to the dentist three or four of us at a time and we'd all sit and wait for each other and we'd do that and then we all had swimming lessons and we'd go down on the beach and sit in the beach and take our turn to the public beach but we still took lessons and we'd go to the club and take tennis lessons and we'd go and sit and wait for our turn so we had i think very rather scheduled at life and my mother i think's feeling was that we should do everything as well as we could and have the most opportunities and then it was up to us that sort of philosophy and i think it paid off because everybody felt they had had all the opportunities my parents could give and if we were a failure it was our own fault your mother actually kept a card index on each one of you what sort of things did you put in the card index did you ever see it yourself yes i was horrified i took my children up to see the house where president kenny was born in boston and they had the card index on the little in my mother's room and my children looked to find out how old i was and there it was in the car and i didn't haven't told them the truth all these years so there was all the illnesses and the uh everybody's injections and shots and so you never get smallpox shot twice that sort of thing well we were very close-knit family like so many other families uh was uh my early years my father was in the diplomatic corps so was spent as much time as possible at home mother was home much more often but uh i must say uh gathered a great deal of sort of strength and sustenance and from my my brothers and from my sisters and i hear mother saying now that she spent a great deal of time with the older ones but it seemed like she spent a great deal of time with the younger ones as well your quote was having said that um mother would have made a great featherweight she had a mean right hand did you ever uh are you speaking i don't know whether that quite uh would be a description i'd use but she she was um a good disciplinarian uh the we we received our quacks with a coat hanger or whatever when during our early years but justice was always a fair was always immediate and it was really never resented well i think if you bring up the eldest son right or the way you want the others to go that is very important because the younger ones watch him if he comes in and shakes hands uh with the guests the others will watch him in the doorway and they'll come in and do the same thing if he goes to college then they sort of think well they probably will that's the natural thing to do and i used to depend on him a lot to give advice or to give my husband my ideas to the others if i thought a girl had too much lipstick i would say jo will you please tell us she's got too much lipstick dad would pay more attention to him than she would to me probably smoking or anything like that he would take her on very often uh so i think it's very important it was in my case anyway because the others are great and teddy said when he went to boarding school he was lonely but he thought his two brothers had gone probably were lonely too but they had stuck it out so he should he would stick it out joseph the eldest son was the one who carried all his father's hopes and ambitions he was sent to study at the london school of economics where he became attracted to socialism rather to his father's dismay so joe did learn a lot about socialism and so when these ideas took root in this country and were expanded my son had been acquainted with them and had that point of view and then he as as we all know or some of us know he had these very heated arguments with his father when he came home from london the capitalist system versus the socialist system and it was very stimulating and joe had some very good ideas did it upset you to see father and son no because my husband knew that when he sent him there and we just had a depression in this country you see and so some of the ideas that joe had about sharing the wealth and about the wealth being distributed and all that sort of thing seemed to make a good deal of sense and my husband knew that he said if he had been joe's age he would have felt the same way joe did but he was brought up into the capitalist in the capitalist system and uh this country has been wonderful to him and so he felt the way he did so and i said to george you feel that by sharing the wealth why don't you give your sailboat away now and just go rowing or swimming like everybody else and he said oh giving away one boat and dispensing with one vote would make a a great deal of difference so we all had a very pleasant uh relaxing a chat about it you'd see there was nothing uh tight or nothing uh uh bitter about it in the late summer of 1944 young joe kennedy was killed in action the news was a shattering blow to all the family particularly to his father who never fully recovered it was left to rose kennedy to rally her children to live for the living as the mantle of heir apparent passed to her second son jack returning home as a war hero jack accepted his new position as the eldest son and began the long slow hall towards the white house while his father remained in the background his mother threw herself wholeheartedly and very effectively into the campaign organizing tea parties and rallying the woman's vote behind her son at that time it was suggested that jack have a tea party i think it was eunice who suggested that if some of the women met him they might be more interested to work in the campaign and the first tea party was a great success uh and i spoke and jack spoke and the women did become interested and did volunteer their services and said that they would teleport to their friends and they would give small tea parties perhaps for other people to meet him and it became rather a challenge for the women around and uh a matter of social significance did you go to kennedy t they would say in one city no but there's going to be one in two weeks and i hope to go and so it away from quite a good deal of interest in the candidate and a lot of volunteers too gave their services yeah she was marvelous she was marvelous it was then my father said to me i one night get into this girls i'll tell you one thing never have your picture taken with a baby and never follow your mother and on the platform because she gives too good a speech it's quite true we never i never do um but everybody was very excited she would come to the receptions there'd be about 1500 women and she'd come and she'd make a little speech about her president kennedy then president kennedy would come in and he'd make this speech about his the future of massachusetts and what he thought he could do as a united states senator then she'd move on and go to another state she loves to campaign it's not a chore and she enjoys likes very much meeting people i think and she's a she's great at it and really makes an effort she works on her little speech beforehand she works on her clothes she's a perfectionist she was to take the same interest in the political careers of her other sons especially teddy who was said to have inherited all the irish charm of his singing grandfather mayor fitzgerald well i always have to leave it up to others to sort of point out the uh the similarities i suppose we're uh our own worst judges on it but uh i've uh of course been enormously interested in in uh my my grandparents and on both sides who were of irish ancestry and um and you do a bit of singing like your grandfather well a few years ago i used to do a little i remember one time was at an occasion when i was running for the uh the senate and i uh i sang and i saw an old-timer at the back of the hall just shaking his head and afterwards when i went out i was talking to my friend and i said what did the old timer say and he said well he voted for your grandfather for mayor and senator the united states and he's going to vote for you if you promise you'll never sing again so i i've been somewhat reluctant to uh to do that i'd like to ask about your mother's skill as a politician and because this has been often observed i think dave powers said she was the best politician of the lot she used to believe to comment to you after your television appearances about your appearance and the things that you said and was this sort of helpful or effective well very uh she does so even uh even now and did it with with president kennedy and robert kennedy as well she'll uh call up on a word perhaps that's been mispronounced she had a word the other day uh s-h-o-r-t-l-i-v-e-d and uh i said it was short-lived and it's a short lived and so i should should correct me on uh little words like this and um things like that which only a mother can do and but which all of us of course uh need uh so much and it was very valued we'd all the brothers would kind of joke with her about it but she'd just stay right after us and we all loved it she seemed to have lost none of that interest in politics for instance when i was about to interview your sister as a shriver she came in and she said i don't forget to give a plug to teddy i'm glad to see she's still out working these days at the age of 83 mrs kennedy lives quietly at her home in hyannis port and her public appearances are few enough but the public have not forgotten her or her family and kennedy watching has become a major local industry all day long motor vessels leave the harbour filled with sightseers eager to see the kennedy home and perhaps catch a glimpse of one of the fabled kennedys themselves good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome on aboard the motor vessel prudence we have just left the ocean street dock and for the next 60 minutes we'll be cruising through the waters ahead of center harbor lewis bay and a short stretch of nantucket sound and finally hyannis port harbour as we leave the inner harbor you will find that the wind becoming stronger we would advise those of you with hats to make sure they're well secured during last season we lost 17 hats overboard and one hairpiece so please make sure that they're well tied on just outside the harbor entrance i'll point out the kennedy homes and other points of interest to you then we'll turn off the pa and move in much closer you can get a better look take better pictures and the deck hands will be around to answer any questions you might have if you look directly out into the beach you'll see a lot of monster hunt structured green in color this is the glass covering for the late ambassador kennedy swimming pool directly over the top of that pool you'll see two brown peaks a white chimney coming from the left peak that home belongs to our late president john fitzgerald kennedy to the left of the pool is a large fight home this one has street fighter the black shuttered window at the top of each peak that home belongs to late ambassador joseph kennedy to the left is another home that belongs to late senator robert kennedy two homes over to the left of roberts right on the beach is another large white home that belongs to stephen smith he married the former miss gene kennedy high up on the hill to the left on island you see the rooftop one more home with one white chimney coming from it that home belongs to senator ted kennedy now we'll turn off the pa and move in closer you can get a better look take better pictures and the deckhands will answer any questions you may have inside the big house hidden from the cameras and the binoculars rose kennedy is at work on her autobiography sorting letters and photographs from the past some of her memories are happy like the year spent at the embassy in london when she acted as hostess to the king of england and presented her daughters at court at the same time she keeps up her life-long work on behalf of the mentally millions of people across the united states who are mentally and it's quite interesting if you mention it how many people say oh i have a friend who had a daughter there was somebody in my family who who was in that condition and so now of course it has come out into the open and these people are encouraged to get jobs and have been successful and they have worked for the government my son talked to mr dillon who was secretary of the treasury and he hired some people in the treasury department to run elevators run errands and he was very pleased and said that there was uh that uh he had no reservations about hiring them these were handicapped people handicapped people and uh then i've traveled different places like i went to puerto rico for instance and there they help the people to work for the tourists to take trays into the dining rooms for instance or again to carry bags or one thing or another so that they were encouraged and were able to earn a livelihood in one way or another so that we've been very pleased with the progress that has been made and there's no stigma attached to it now people used to be ashamed they used to be shy about discussing it but now they come out in the open and that's what's so so much better for the children you in fact kept your daughter rosemary at home we did for a number of years but then it was we found it was impossible so now she's at a very good home with the uh nuns of st coletta who and these religious have been specially trained in that particular work so um as i said it's a big problem and i'm very sympathetic towards mother's fathers too because of course if a child is home she's constantly on the mind of a mother or father because you never can tell like my daughter used to want to go out in a row boat if you saw the other children go and of course she couldn't go she couldn't know it's the oars sometimes she'd go to the post office with them and then she decided she didn't want to come home with them well that would be all right with an ordinary child but with her you couldn't tell in which direction she might wander off or whether she'd be picked up in a car by someone or so it was a great worry that's why some of my children have had camps during the summer for these children eunice has one now and my daughter jean mr smith and they have these children at camp when my brother joe died in the war we decided we'd do something to commemorate him and we all agreed we want to do something for children because we all love children and this was the field most neglected in this country so we had of course kept rosemary home until she was about 23 or 4 years of age and i think that was a very wise decision research shows that children who do stay at home do make more progress unless they're very severely and rosemary was not that severely rita um and the trend of course both in ireland and our country is to put them back into the community and give them services there she was um went to england with us and my mother had her presented at core and she did not go to school over there but she was tutored and she could do very elementary things and she is now and lives in a cottage taken care of by the sisters and she's very happy does your mother go to see her yes constantly she goes i go one month and she goes the following month and we alternate uh but you've sort of taken over the responsibility for looking after i'm delighted she's my sister every part of the house is filled with memories especially the living room where john f kennedy posed for photographs in front of the fireplace with his family on the morning of his election as president of the united states only one of her four sons is now left to her teddy as the youngest son she still looks on him as the baby of the family but the death of the others means that he is now the eldest son as well with the duty of carrying on the work left unfinished by his three dead brothers she uh well she teases uh teases us a lot the the younger ones uh but she's uh uh and jokes and and uh kids with us and uh but she's uh and never change i find that i'm i run around and uh and doing little things for for her which which i used to do when i was a small boy means absolutely no difference to her that i've been elected to the united states center for 10 years when i get home i'm just the the youngest and i better be busy about the things that need doing would you or will you consult with her if you're thinking of going for the presidency well i don't know i i i would think that uh her concerns are obviously would weigh on on any decision i i but i of course would make the decision uh myself and but the effect that it would have on her would have some impact uh but that's going to be a decision of my own and uh very much of my own but obviously i'd want to at least give very heavy consideration the impact that would have on her she's been through a tremendous amount of of suffering and and this obviously is would be a factor but again it's uh via my personal decisions would be very much influenced by the other the nieces and nephews as well or a number of different grandchildren you've probably seen them running around here now these past few days and uh they need attention i have the overwhelming feeling even though your mother is very careful when i asked her about this that she would in fact be happy for you to run well i'll have to watch the the tv uh tape myself and i could judge it on the lawn outside the big house a new generation is beginning to take over where once mrs kennedy watched her children playing touch football now she watches her children's children as in the old days a young man is employed to act as play leader and the competition is keen the families of five of our children have houses nearby and there's always plenty of young life around the house the lawn is out of bounds in the early afternoon while grandmother rests after lunch but for the rest of the day they are free to come and go as they choose there are two tennis courts for them and a little theater in the basement where films are shown once a week despite the generation gap she still enjoys their company and even goes for a swim each morning from the sandy beach surrounded by so much life and activity she never allows herself to become lonely or withdrawn yet she would hardly be human if she didn't constantly remember the children that played there and are now no more the voices that are stilled forever the church in hyannis where she attends mass every morning is equally full of memories on weekdays the church is almost empty but on sundays it's crowded with worshipers many of them on the lookout to see if there are any kennedys among the congregation ethel kennedy is usually one of the first to be spotted as the late robert kennedy's wife she spent many years under the glare of publicity another well-known face is that of eunice kennedy who is known both in her own right and as the wife of former peace corps director sergeant shriver who ran for vice president at the last election [Music] the senior mrs kennedy herself usually waits on in the church for a while partly to avoid the crowds and partly because as the years go on she has so many more people to pray for a plaque in the church marks the pew where jack used to worship she prays for him and for the others too robert shot by an assassin kathleen killed in an air crash joseph in whose memory she and her husband erected the high altar of the church it's a place of memories but it's also the source of her strength before she leaves she makes the stations of the cross and pauses before the 12th station which shows the blessed mother standing beside her crucified son well as i said i've always felt that um that um the heavier the cross the more graces our lord sends us and then i have had devotion of course to our lady for a long time and i did think of her watching her son because i had devotion to the stations of the cross and of course carrying the cross she met him and then of course she was president of the crucifixion and i did think of that when jack's casket was at the white house in the uh not in the white house in the rotunda in washington as i know that and then again bobby's casket was on the um it was in saint patrick's cathedral and again i stood there as the blessed mother had stood at the time of crucifixion you thought about this actually did you at the time i knew she would give me the strength and the grace as i prayed there you you mentioned that you found uh you asked not only for the grace and strength but also resignation oh yes resignation but because of course it is it was a time of great frustration you i spent all my life 25 30 40 years of my life bringing up these children so they'd be strong honest capable men self-sacrificing about and then just when and they're willing to work for humanity eager to work to give their talents and then so it was difficult can you one of the things of resignation is to try to perhaps to understand uh is there any understanding in this is god's will you mentioned it as it is and it's happened as i said if you read the trojan women by euripides 2500 years ago you see hakeem mourning the death of her grandson in a war and it's it goes all through history and i've had other i've had some very happy moments and i look at those and i accept the others and i don't want to be a burden and i won't be you know that's that that's the end of that act end of act three your daughter eunice mentioned that i should ask you about growing old gracefully yeah well that's a new idea i don't think i'll go into it people can use their imagination well i think that's that's true about mother having a place in history but i uh i don't really feel that she's uh uh in any way uh it's a sort of a false feeling or an identification i think mother will go down really probably in history as uh you know one of the very significant women of our of of our time but i think it'll be for all the right reasons it'll be because she felt deeply about a family and uh about their upbringing and felt deeply about her faith and her religion was completely devoted uh to the the country i mean all sort of the the christian uh ideals and i think i'm sure i'm i'm prejudiced but that's all right with me yeah uh she's uh really an enormously extraordinary person but she's a fun person too i mean it's and that i think is one of the reasons why we're i think all of us so devoted to her [Music] 1960s [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Length: 44min 42sec (2682 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021