“As the youngest in my family, and with my family on the move in the 1940s, a lot of my schooling was done in boarding schools. My junior high years were spent at the Fessenden School in Newton, Massachusetts. Newton is a suburb of Boston, and Grandpa lived nearby in the Bellevue Hotel in downtown Boston. Boarding school can be a lonely place at any age, as you are separated from your family, so you can imagine how happy I was to have Grandpa as someone to visit and do things with when I had time off from school. In so many ways, Grandpa was a second parent for me. He was someone who would listen to my adolescent chatter, my hopes and dreams, and he would be my personal guide as we explored the city of Boston. We would often eat lunch or dinner in the hotel dining room, but I never got much to eat. Grandpa was always introducing me to someone sitting nearby or taking me into the kitchen so the staff could meet me as well. Grandpa simply knew everyone, and if he didn’t, he acted as if he knew them anyway.

Grandpa loved the city and took great pride in the things he had done for the citizens of Boston when he was mayor—things like the zoo, the Christmas tree on the Common, the Park Street bandstand, things that everyone could enjoy. He was very conscious of the welfare of everyone. He also took great pride in the history of the city, which he saw on every street corner and down every alley. He wanted me to appreciate his sense of history as well, so a one-time visit to the USS Constitution or to Bunker Hill or to Paul Revere’s house was never enough. We would go back over and over again, and he would tell the same story over and over again. In time, I would become his guide, and he was quite pleased with the progress I was making in capturing the moment, the event or the place we were looking at. Being a good oral historian takes time and practice. And being a good Irish storyteller is a gift you hone. I think I did quite well, at least according to Grandpa…

With so many grandchildren, I suppose one might wonder, did he have a favorite? He did—the one he was with at that moment. He had that special gift of making you feel you were the only person in the whole world he cared about. As a kid, to have an adult pay that kind of attention to you was very special. How nice that was for all of us to be able to feel that way when we were with him. As I’ve said, for me he was a second parent at a time in my life when I needed one the most.”

TEDDY, ON SPENDING TIME WITH HIS GRANDFATHER FITZGERALD