Rose Kennedy Exhibit Set to Open at JFK Hyannis Museum

HYANNIS – The John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum unveils a new special exhibit Friday focused on the matriarch of the Kennedy family.

“Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Mother of a President” tells her story through video, text and photographs including some never-before-displayed.

The exhibit will highlight Rose’s life as a daughter of Boston Mayor John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, wife of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and mother to nine children.

“It certainly will underscore that Rose Kennedy took being a mother as her most important job and she was able to find ways to connect with each of the children,” said John Allen, the executive director of the museum. “She constantly wrote to her children and connected with them and made sure they were being good in their work and good in their family life.”

Allen said the Rose’s life is a great subject for the museum and deserved and in-depth look.

“I think it’s rich enough and there’s certainly enough that you can find in books and in the history that support her being a very important mother and a great example of a mother,” he said.

Allen said he hopes visitors see that her legacy connects with some of the younger generations even after the death of her son.

“She stayed connected with pictures with grandchildren and great grandchildren and active in their life,” he said.

A special ceremony will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at the museum on Main Street in Hyannis. Speakers will include Richard Neitz, the president of the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum Foundation Board, Rebecca Pierce Merrick, a member of the board of directors and curator of the museum and Allen.

The exhibit was created by New York designer Roger Westerman.

It will run through 2017.

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter