Aug. 8, 1964 - Mrs. Josephine Mary Hannon Fitzgerald (pictured in 1962), maternal grandmother of President Kennedy, died today at the age of 98. She was the widow of John F. Fitzgerald, former Mayor of Boston.
Mrs. Fitzgerald died without having been told of President Kennedy’s assassination. Relatives, fearing the shock might kill her, had kept the news from her.
Her son, Thomas F. Fitzgerald, with whom she had lived in Boston’s Dorchester district in recent years, said, “I had a hunch she knew, but we never talked about it.”
Mr. Fitzgerald said his mother had suffered a heart attack and went to sleep. She died just after the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church had been administered by the Rev. James Larner of St. Brendan’s Church nearby.
Mrs. Fitzgerald last saw President Kennedy on Nov. 6, 1962, Election Day, when he went to Boston to vote and paid her a surprise visit at her home.
“Hi, Gram,” he greeted her. She reached up and kissed him and said, “Jack.”
The two sat in her bedroom and talked about their family.
Mrs. Fitzgerald was born in Acton, a small town 25 miles from Boston. She was married there in 1889 to Mr. Fitzgerald, who served two terms as Mayor of Boston in 1906 and 1910 and three terms as a U.S. Representative.
Her husband, a colorful politician, was known to generations of Bostonians as an able rival of James Michael Curley, another Mayor of that period.
Mr. Fitzgerald was called in political circles by the nickname of Honey Fitz, a name which President Kennedy later gave to the Presidential yacht. Mr. Fitzgerald died in 1950.
Mrs. Fitzgerald was the mother of six children. Only three are living. Besides her sons, Thomas and John F. Fitzgerald of Milton, and her daughter, Rose, Mrs. Fitzgerald left 27 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren.
She shunned personal publicity but followed with keen interest the careers of President Kennedy and her other grandsons, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
The Bible on which President Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961 was Mrs. Fitzgerald’s. She watched the ceremony on television and commented to friends: “Isn’t he wonderful? That’s my boy.”
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