People: Apr. 25, 1969

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Ethel, three secretaries and three volunteers spend hours every day answering the mail that cascades into Hickory Hill at the rate of up to 100 letters a day. Most replies are typed on Ethel's black-bordered stationery, and she scrawls personal messages on many of them. Never, though, does she sign with the whimsical drawing of a pregnant woman that her acquaintances saw so often in the past. Nor does she send many more of her humorous telegrams and letters, even if her friends do. Her favorite valentine this year was Robert McNamara's—a picture of himself encircled with the motto: "You'll find me under 'Lovers' in the Yellow Pages."

Ethel is up every morning at 7 for breakfast with the children. Before attending Mass, she shuttles youngsters back and forth to school in one of the several car pools her large brood involves her in. Eight children are at Hickory Hill with her now. She sits down to every meal with them, says the rosary and reads the Bible with them every night. She comforts, counsels and disciplines—quite strictly sometimes. "Once in a while she gets sore as hell at them," says a family intimate. "Bobby never struck any of the kids. Ethel, I think, has."

Ted Kennedy and a few close friends do what they can to fill a small part of Bobby's role as father. Art Buchwald holds irregular meetings of the "Blue Meanies," and entertains them with picnics, fanciful discussions and mock-secret projects. LeMoyne Billings, a prep school roommate of Jack's, recently took Bobby Jr. on a trip to Colombia. And Dave Hackett makes a point of attending each and every Father's Day at all the schools.

Of course, friends can only do so much. As Rose Kennedy points out, the advice that a father could give will be missed over the next 20 years. "Bobby spent so much time," recalls Ethel. "If one of the boys was having trouble just catching a football, Bobby would go out and work with him on it, tell him what he was doing wrong and practice with him until he got it."

Last Christmas, as a surprise for Ethel, the older children composed letters about their father. Wrote David, 13: "Daddy was very funny in church because he would embaress all of us by singing very loud. Daddy did not have a very good voice. There will be no more football with Daddy, no more swimming with him, no more riding and no more camping with him. But he was the best father their ever was and I would rather have him for a father the length of time I did than any other father for a million years."

Outsiders may consider it bathetic, but this feeling is genuine at Hickory Hill and it runs close beneath the surface. Ethel's constant motion provides her own defense against misery. It is painful for her to sit still for any length of time, her hands idle, her thoughts closing in on her. Then her pert features droop, reflecting the ravages of sorrow.