Dec. 16, 1964 | Sen. Ted Kennedy Leaves Hospital

Dec. 16, 1964 - Senator Edward M. Kennedy made good a promise today by walking out of Boston’s New England Baptist Hospital in time for Christmas — as he said he would six months ago when his back was broken in a plane crash.
Although two canes had been carried out of the hospital with other baggage, Senator Kennedy walked without them, slowly and firmly. He wore a light Chesterfield coat and black laceless shoes. Beneath his clothes, he wore a heavy leather brace. His weight had dropped from 205 to 185 pounds in the hospital.
Later, he flew to Miami and then to Palm Beach, Fla., for the holidays.
“We're delighted the doctors could get me out of here in time for the start of the Senate session,” he said to about 100 well‐wishers on leaving the hospital. “After all, there’s a young Senator from New York who might want to take my seat if I weren’t there to fill it.” The New Yorker is Robert F. Kennedy, his older brother, who was elected on Nov. 3.
Four hours earlier, at 5 a.m., Senator Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, arose and was driven 25 miles north to a cemetery in Andover in 10‐degree weather. He made an unannounced visit to the grave of Edward Moss, his special aide, who was killed in the plane crash on June 19 in western Massachusetts.
Mr. Moss would have been 41 today. After climbing an icy knoll in St. Augustine’s Cemetery, Senator Kennedy was driven to the Moss home on Walnut Street, about half a mile away, to have coffee and chat with Mrs. Moss and her three children.
Alerted to the Senator’s visit, the children, Christine, 12, Cynthia, 10, and Carol, 7, were waiting in bathrobes and pajamas while their mother prepared coffee.
Carol asked, in a whisper, if the others thought “the Senator would like to see our dog?” Assured that he would, Carol let a lumbering mongrel upstairs from the cellar.
“Don’t tell him his name,” Carol whispered to one of her sisters. But Senator Kennedy wanted to know.
“His name is Theodore, but we call him Teddy,” Carol replied.
The Senator, who is known as Teddy, roared with laughter.

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