P. J. Kennedy

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use mdy dates Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox officeholder Patrick Joseph Kennedy (January 14, 1858 – May 18, 1929) was an American businessman and politician. He and his wife Mary were the parents of four children, including future U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Their grandchildren through Joseph include U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and longtime U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.

After cholera killed his father and brother, Kennedy was the only surviving male in his family. He started work at age fourteen and became a successful businessman, later owning three saloons and a whisky import house. Eventually, he had major interests in coal and banking as well. Kennedy was a major figure in the Democratic Party in Boston. Though he served in both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the state Senate, he preferred to play a behind-the-scenes role as a party boss.

Early life

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Young Kennedy around the mid-to-late 1870s

Patrick Joseph Kennedy was born on January 14, 1858, in Boston, Massachusetts.<ref name=Obrien9>Template:Cite book</ref> He was the youngest of five children born to Patrick Kennedy (1823–1858) and Bridget Kennedy (née Murphy) (1824–1888). His parents were Irish Catholic immigrants who were both from New Ross, County Wexford and emigrated to America together to flee the Great Famine in Ireland. The couple's elder son John had died of cholera in infancy two years before Kennedy was born. Ten months after P. J. Kennedy's birth, his father Patrick also succumbed to the infectious epidemic that infested the family's East Boston neighborhood. As the only surviving male, Kennedy was the first family member to receive a formal education, attending Sacred Heart, a private Catholic school in Boston. His mother Bridget had purchased an East Boston stationery and notions store where she had worked. The business took off and expanded into a grocery and liquor store.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

At the age of fourteen, young Kennedy left school to help support his mother and three older sisters, Mary, Joanna, and Margaret, as a stevedore on the Boston docks. In the 1880s, with money he had saved from his modest earnings and help from his mother Bridget, he launched a business career by buying a saloon in the Haymarket Square neighborhood near downtown Boston. In time, he bought a second establishment by the East Boston docks. Next, to capitalize on the social drinking of upper-class Bostonians, Kennedy purchased a third bar in an upscale East Boston hotel, the Maverick House. Before he was 30, his growing prosperity allowed him to buy a whiskey-importing business.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Marriage and children

On November 23, 1887, Kennedy married Mary Augusta Hickey.<ref name=Obrien9/> The couple had four children and remained married until Hickey's death on May 20, 1923. His wealth afforded them a home on Jeffries Point in East Boston.<ref name="dallek">Template:Cite book</ref>

Name	Birth	Death	Age	Notes
Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr.	September 6, 1888	November 18, 1969	81 years, 2 months	Married on October 7, 1914, to Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald (July 22, 1890 – January 22, 1995); 9 children
Francis Benedict Kennedy	March 11, 1891	June 14, 1892	1 year, 3 months	Died of Diptheria
Mary Loretta Kennedy	August 6, 1892	November 18, 1972	80 years, 3 months	Married on October 12, 1927, to George William Connelly (June 10, 1898 – August 29, 1971); one daughter
Margaret Louise Kennedy	October 22, 1898	November 14, 1974	76 years, 23 days	Married on June 14, 1924, to Charles Joseph Burke (August 23, 1899 – April 5, 1967); three children

Political career

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P. J. Kennedy in 1893 as a Massachusetts State Senator

Kennedy was, as Robert Dallek describes, "always ready to help less fortunate fellow Irishmen with a little cash and some sensible advice."<ref name=":0" /> A sociable man who mixed comfortably with both Roman Catholic and Protestant elites, Kennedy moved successfully into politics in 1884, when the Democrats were a minority in the Republican-dominated Massachusetts General Court. Kennedy served five single-year terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and then three two-year terms in the Massachusetts Senate. He became one of Boston's leading Democrats, giving a seconding speech for Grover Cleveland at the 1888 Democratic National Convention in St. Louis. More drawn to behind-the-scenes political work, Kennedy left the Massachusetts Senate in 1895 and focused his energies on his role as boss in Boston's Ward Two, serving on the Democratic party's unofficial Board of Strategy and on the local elections and fire commissions.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

Death

By the time of his death in 1929, Kennedy held an interest in a coal company and a substantial amount of stock in a bank, the Columbia Trust Company.<ref name="dallek"/>

In his later years, Kennedy developed degenerative liver disease. In April 1929, he was admitted to Deaconess Hospital to receive treatment.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He died there on May 18 at the age of 71. His funeral was held at St. John the Evangelist Church in Winthrop, Massachusetts, on May 21. The Boston Globe reported that hundreds of mourners lined the streets to watch Kennedy's funeral procession and businesses in East Boston closed to honor him.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kennedy is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Legacy

In 1914, P. J. Kennedy's son Joseph married Rose Fitzgerald (July 22, 1890 – January 22, 1995), the eldest daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald (1863–1950).<ref name="Time">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. went on to become a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair<ref name="Time" /> and a U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children, including World War II casualty Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>