Tragedy hits Hyannisport hard
Townspeople touched often by Kennedys’ history of heartache
Condolences poured in for the Kennedy family on Friday, a day after Saoirse Kennedy Hill, the granddaughter of Ethel and the late Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead at the family’s Hyannisport compound.
The 22-year-old’s unexpected death weighed heavily on neighbors and the larger Hyannisport community — the latest trauma to strike a famous family well-versed in tragedy.
Greg Harden, who lives just outside the Kennedy compound and knows several of the family members, said, “They’re great people. They’ve been through a lot, a lot of tragedy in the family. And this is just really sad.”
One Hyannisport woman said her 22-year-old son played tennis and sailed with Kennedy Hill. The woman, who declined to give her name, said Kennedy Hill’s death was “tragic” and told the Herald her son called her Friday morning “upset to learn a life was taken so early.”
Lauren Rolfe and Arnie Arluke, who live near the Kennedys, described a large emergency response at the compound Thursday afternoon.
“All the sirens were going,” Rolfe said. “All the emergency vehicles were going by our house, so we knew something bad had happened.”
Rolfe said the compound, which sometimes plays host to parties and weddings, had been quiet in the days leading up to Kennedy Hill’s death.
Rolfe and Arluke visited the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum Friday with a friend, an outing planned prior to learning of Kennedy Hill’s death.
“It feels heavy. It’s a long, hard history for that family. It gave me a little pause to come today,” Rolfe said.
Kennedy Hill was the granddaughter of Ethel Kennedy and the late Robert F. Kennedy, and the daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill and Paul Michael Hill. She was niece of former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II and the cousin of current U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III. The late President John F. Kennedy was her great uncle.
The Kennedy clan has long been plagued by trauma: The assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968; the drug overdose that killed Saoirse’s uncle David Kennedy, son of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, in 1984. And John F. Kennedy Jr. died in 1999 after the plane he was flying crashed off Martha’s Vineyard, also killing his wife and his sister-in-law.
Ben Ayres of Hyannis said, “It’s a continuation of a history of tragedy.”
Ayres, who was a child when John F. Kennedy was shot, said, “It created a huge impression on me. It just made me sad.” The latest tragedy to befall the storied family “is really no different.”
Kennedy sightings are common around Hyannis. Kennedy Hill and other members of the family would frequent Baxter’s Boathouse restaurant, often arriving by boat.
“She came in the last couple summers” and would hang out with her family or the “younger crowd,” said employee Jeff Robertson, noting co-workers had seen Kennedy Hill there “a couple weekends ago.”
Ayres said, “there’s a real kind of earthiness and friendliness” to the Kennedys. “They just kind of melt into the area here and are very much a part of the community.”
But the family’s more devastating moments have their impact, too.
“Most people here are affected by it,” Bellamy said. “It breaks the otherwise peaceful tone of the area.”