Kennedys Gather at Hyannis Port to Celebrate Rose’s 98th Birthday

BOSTON —  Rose Kennedy turned 98 on Friday, and family members gathered for a weekend celebration at their cluster of houses at Hyannis Port.

The guest list for dinner Friday night included her only living son, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.); her daughter, Eunice, and son-in-law Sargent Shriver; daughters Patricia Lawford and Jean Smith; daughter-in-law Ethel Kennedy, and an assortment of grandchildren.

White cake with chocolate frosting, which Mrs. Smith said is her mother’s favorite, was served for dessert.

Kara Kennedy, the senator’s daughter, brought 98 long-stemmed red roses from the Rose Kennedy Garden in Boston’s North End, where Mrs. Kennedy was born.

A spokesman for the senator said a private Mass was celebrated for Mrs. Kennedy and other family members at her home Friday morning by Father Edward Duffy of Hyannis.

The dinner party featured a piano player who serenaded Mrs. Kennedy with “Happy Birthday,” a medley of Irish songs and “Sweet Adeline”--one of her favorite tunes because her father often sang it to her.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg last month named her newborn daughter Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, but the Schlossbergs were not expected to go to Cape Cod for the weekend, Mrs. Smith said.

Mrs. Kennedy has been confined to a wheelchair or to bed since a stroke in April, 1984.

She was born on July 22, 1890, the oldest of six children born to Josephine Mary Hannon and John F. Fitzgerald, a mayor of Boston and one of the most colorful political figures of his time.