9 US: Growing Up Kennedy – An Ambassador's Intimate Memoir of Childhood and Family from the Last Surviving Sibling - Softcover

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Jean Kennedy Smith  is the former United States Ambassador to Ireland and founder of VSA, an international organization that provides arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increases access to the arts for all. Smith was named an honorary citizen of Ireland by Irish President Mary McAleese for her contribution to the Irish peace process, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in recognition of her service to people with disabilities. The eighth of nine children born to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Smith is a mother of four and the widow of the late Stephen Smith. She lives in New York.

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Prompted by interesting tidbits in the daily papers, Rose and Joe Kennedy would pose questions to their nine children at the dinner table: “Where has Amelia Earhart gone?” “Do you think there will be war in Europe?” “What will the British do?” It was a nightly custom that helped shape the Kennedys into the men and women they would become.

Before Joe and Rose’s children emerged as leaders on the world stage, they were simply a loving circle of brothers and sisters who played football, swam, sailed, read, and pursued their interests. They were children inspired by their parents, who instilled in them a strong work ethic, a deep love of country, and an intense appreciation for the sacrifices their ancestors made to come to America. “No whining in this house!” was their father’s regular refrain. It was his way of reminding them not to complain and to be grateful for what they had, and he always emphasized how important it is to give back.

As Jean Kennedy Smith writes of her parents, “They knew how to cure our hurts, bind our wounds, listen to our woes, and help us enjoy life. We were lucky children indeed.”

With charming anecdotes and dozens of rarely seen family photographs, The Nine of Us offers indelible, elegantly rendered portraits of a closely knit family known throughout the world.