dark eyes, her face framed by a thick head of hair. She was wearing a pair of white kidskin gloves, and looked as though she was on her way to a lady’s tea rather than to a grisly exhumation.
Janet was not squeamish. She had spent many nights cleaning up Black Jack’s mess. But the idea of digging up the bodies of dead children was too grotesque for words. Janet told Zimny that she had tried to talk herdaughter out of her bizarre scheme, but nothing she said could change her mind.
Zimny was flying an Aero Commander 600, a small twin-engine six-seater, and it took him less than two hours to reach Newport, Rhode Island. There Janet was greeted by John F. Hayes Jr., the director of the Hayes-O’Neill Funeral Home. They drove in his hearse to St. Columba’s Cemetery, overlooking Narragansett Bay.
At the entrance, a few stubborn leaves still clung to the branches of the maple trees. The cemetery looked gray against the gray sky. The hearse made its way along a winding drive to Section 40, a gentle hillside where Jackie’s stillborn girl had been buried on August 25, 1956, by Father Murphy, a priest from St. Augustine’s Church, in the presence of Bobby Kennedy and Kenny O’Donnell, Jack’s right-hand man.
Two gravediggers were waiting in front of the marker, an upright headstone, about thirty inches high. Jackie had picked out a name, Arabella, for her stillborn daughter, but the gravestone simply read “Baby Girl Kennedy.”
At a signal from Hayes, the gravediggers shoved their spades into the ground, and earth began flying over their shoulders. While they dug away, Hayes removed a brand-new infant’s casket from the back of his hearse and placed it near the hole that was appearing in the ground.
It was a shallow grave, and the workmen quickly reached the lid of the coffin. They dug around its sides, creating a trench, then tried to lift it out of the ground. The moldy wood crumbled in their hands. Inside, maggots and beetles crawled over what remained of Arabella—a few muddy shards of bone, and tiny bits of soft tissue. The decomposed body was so thoroughly leached by water and bacteria that it was hard to identify any part of the skeleton.
Piece by piece, the gravediggers dragged out whatever they could. Everything went into the new casket. Thesmall mass of putrefying matter gave off a horrifying stench. John Hayes, the undertaker, attempted to engage Janet in conversation to distract her during the gruesome proceeding. But she refused to speak. Nor did she utter a word as Hayes sealed the new coffin and slid it back into his hearse.
Janet spent the night at Hammersmith Farm, the Auchincloss country seat in Newport. Once Janet had acquired the Auchincloss name and money, she had become quite grand. She had always been a mercurial woman with a cyclonic temper, but during Jackie’s teenage years, Janet’s violent outbursts seemed to know no bounds. She thought nothing of strafing Jackie across both cheeks with her open hand.
After witnessing examples of Janet’s cruel behavior, many of Jackie’s school friends assumed that she hated her mother. But that was not true. Jackie admired her mother’s spirit and courage (Janet’s nose had been broken three times in horseback riding accidents), her passion for art, her personal discipline in diet and grooming, and her talent for household organization. Jackie may have loved her father more, but she spent her life trying to please her mother.
Her parents’ messy divorce left a lasting mark on Jackie. She was ashamed that her schoolmates could read newspaper accounts of the divorce, in which her father was described as an adulterer. Her shameful feelings of exposure would color Jackie’s attitude toward the press for the rest of her life.
Once a carefree and happy-go-lucky child, Jackie became stiff and introverted. She began a lifelong habit of biting her nails. She retreated into a life of fantasy and seemed to relate better to books than to people. She
Janet was not squeamish. She had spent many nights cleaning up Black Jack’s mess. But the idea of digging up the bodies of dead children was too grotesque for words. Janet told Zimny that she had tried to talk herdaughter out of her bizarre scheme, but nothing she said could change her mind.
Zimny was flying an Aero Commander 600, a small twin-engine six-seater, and it took him less than two hours to reach Newport, Rhode Island. There Janet was greeted by John F. Hayes Jr., the director of the Hayes-O’Neill Funeral Home. They drove in his hearse to St. Columba’s Cemetery, overlooking Narragansett Bay.
At the entrance, a few stubborn leaves still clung to the branches of the maple trees. The cemetery looked gray against the gray sky. The hearse made its way along a winding drive to Section 40, a gentle hillside where Jackie’s stillborn girl had been buried on August 25, 1956, by Father Murphy, a priest from St. Augustine’s Church, in the presence of Bobby Kennedy and Kenny O’Donnell, Jack’s right-hand man.
Two gravediggers were waiting in front of the marker, an upright headstone, about thirty inches high. Jackie had picked out a name, Arabella, for her stillborn daughter, but the gravestone simply read “Baby Girl Kennedy.”
At a signal from Hayes, the gravediggers shoved their spades into the ground, and earth began flying over their shoulders. While they dug away, Hayes removed a brand-new infant’s casket from the back of his hearse and placed it near the hole that was appearing in the ground.
It was a shallow grave, and the workmen quickly reached the lid of the coffin. They dug around its sides, creating a trench, then tried to lift it out of the ground. The moldy wood crumbled in their hands. Inside, maggots and beetles crawled over what remained of Arabella—a few muddy shards of bone, and tiny bits of soft tissue. The decomposed body was so thoroughly leached by water and bacteria that it was hard to identify any part of the skeleton.
Piece by piece, the gravediggers dragged out whatever they could. Everything went into the new casket. Thesmall mass of putrefying matter gave off a horrifying stench. John Hayes, the undertaker, attempted to engage Janet in conversation to distract her during the gruesome proceeding. But she refused to speak. Nor did she utter a word as Hayes sealed the new coffin and slid it back into his hearse.
Janet spent the night at Hammersmith Farm, the Auchincloss country seat in Newport. Once Janet had acquired the Auchincloss name and money, she had become quite grand. She had always been a mercurial woman with a cyclonic temper, but during Jackie’s teenage years, Janet’s violent outbursts seemed to know no bounds. She thought nothing of strafing Jackie across both cheeks with her open hand.
After witnessing examples of Janet’s cruel behavior, many of Jackie’s school friends assumed that she hated her mother. But that was not true. Jackie admired her mother’s spirit and courage (Janet’s nose had been broken three times in horseback riding accidents), her passion for art, her personal discipline in diet and grooming, and her talent for household organization. Jackie may have loved her father more, but she spent her life trying to please her mother.
Her parents’ messy divorce left a lasting mark on Jackie. She was ashamed that her schoolmates could read newspaper accounts of the divorce, in which her father was described as an adulterer. Her shameful feelings of exposure would color Jackie’s attitude toward the press for the rest of her life.
Once a carefree and happy-go-lucky child, Jackie became stiff and introverted. She began a lifelong habit of biting her nails. She retreated into a life of fantasy and seemed to relate better to books than to people. She
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