Woah, hold the phone! Did you know JFK’s mom and grandfather knew Sir Thomas Lipton?!?
I had no idea until I visited the house where President Kennedy was born in Brookline today!
The photograph of Rose Kennedy with Lipton is hanging in the second-floor hallway of the house. The Park Ranger giving the tour said it was taken on “one of his yachts”, but there’s not really enough background to tell if it’s one of the Shamrock racers or Lipton’s motoryacht, the Erin. It was taken in 1909, when Rose Kennedy and her father, John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, were part of a Boston Chamber of Commerce delegation touring Europe, and happened to be in Cowes at the same time Lipton was.
The Kennedys kept a tea set (what else?) given to them by Lipton in their dining room, viable right when you enter the house. Here’s a clearer picture— the flag on the right is Lipton’s “shamrock” personal flag, the one on the left looks like a blue version of the Royal Cork Yacht Club pennant. (Maybe it was blue back then?)
Lipton also gave the Kennedys pins with his shamrock insignia on them— Mrs. Kennedy displayed hers in a frame in her study. I’d love to know what the note underneath says!
Obviously it makes sense that Joseph and Rose Kennedy, as prominent Irish-American Bostonians, would celebrate a connection to one of the most famous Irishmen in the early-20th-century US. As a self-made millionaire who had entered elite society through charisma and determination, Lipton may have also been something of an aspirational figure for Joseph Kennedy with his own high ambitions for himself and his sons.
(John F. Kennedy himself would have been 14 when Thomas Lipton died, but I don’t think there’s any evidence they actually met. JFK’s most famous America’s Cup connection would be attending the 1962 competition and giving a speech for the competing crews.)
