Kennedy mourners pay respects

BOSTON — A motorcade carrying the body of Sen. Edward Kennedy passed miles of mourners Thursday as it proceeded from the Cape Cod home where he spent his final days to the presidential library in Boston bearing the name of one of his slain brothers.

Thousands of people waited in line at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to pay their respects at the two-day public viewing. The doors opened shortly before 5 p.m. CDT Thursday. Officials were allowing people to enter in groups of 35 to 40.

Mourners had begun lining up outside the library for hours beforehand. By the time people were allowed in, the line snaked around the library grounds.

Meanwhile, a contingent of friends and family were sitting vigil for Kennedy, including the family of Brian Hart, who was killed in an unarmored humvee in Iraq. After Hart's death, Kennedy worked with his relatives to seek more body armor for troops.

Also sitting vigil were former staff, longtime friends and two families who became friends with Kennedy after their relatives were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Thousands had assembled along the 70-mile motorcade route, gathering to bid farewell to the last of the famed Kennedy brothers and mark the end of a national political chapter.

The motorcade started its trip in Hyannis Port, at the Cape Cod home where Kennedy's family held a private Mass. Eighty-five Kennedy relatives traveled with the senator's body to the library,where the Senate's third-longest-serving member will lie in repose.

The senator's loved ones included nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister Eunice; and his son Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman.

Before the motorcade departed, mourners crowded the end of the barricaded road leading to the family compound.

A bouquet of white and yellow lilies lay on the lawn of David Nylan's vacation rental near the Kennedy home, where a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy's memory.

"The Kennedys and Hyannis and the Cape, they just kind of go hand in hand," said Nylan, 38, who said people had been stopping near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died late Tuesday.

On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum.

Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: "God bless Ted, the last was first," referring to his ascension to political greatness after his two older brothers were assassinated.

Kennedy's widow, Vicki, put her hand over her heart as the procession rolled down Hanover Street in the North End neighborhood, past St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and where Kennedy later eulogized her. The crowd applauded, and Caroline and other family members acknowledged them with a wave from their cars.

"When a member of the Kennedy family passes, it's like family. It feels like family," said Jeanne Pagano, 54, who was onthe sidewalk outside the church. "I really loved the man and the family. I loved them."

After leaving the church, the motorcade traveled across the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway created by the Big Dig highway project, which Kennedy helped shepherd through the Senate.

The park occupies the same stretch of land once dominated by an elevated expressway named after John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, Rose's father and a patriarch of the Kennedy-Fitzgerald clan.

Kennedy's motorcade then paused at Faneuil Hall, where the historic bell rang 47 times - once for each of Kennedy's years in the Senate.

Scott Howe, 46, and his 15-year-old son, Austin, from Laurel, Md., were among those gathering outside the library and planned to pay their respects to Kennedy on Thursday night.

"He seemed to really care about his constituents," Scott Howe said. "The Kennedy family, despite the money they had, had a big streak of altruism."

The family planned an invitation-only private memorial service for this evening at the library.

All the living presidents were expected to attend the funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica - commonly known as the Mission Church - in Boston's working-class Mission Hill neighborhood. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver the eulogy.

Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of about 100 dignitaries who will pay their respects to Kennedy at the library before making their way to the church.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his assassinated brothers - former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy - at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

Information for this article was contributed by Ray Henry, Denise Lavoie and Jeannie Nuss of The Associated Press.