Sen. Edward Kennedy, Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg attend the celebratory Mass for John Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

FROM THE SERVICE: Ted Kennedy pays tribute to his nephew Memorial service attendees RELATED VIDEO CNN's Gary Tuchman reports on the private memorial Mass. (July 23) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Maria Hinojosa brings us the sights and sounds of a Harlem memorial for JFK Jr. (July 23) Windows Media 28K 80K A retrospective of JFK Jr.'s humor, from CNN's Jeanne Moos. (July 23) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Carl Rochelle reports on the continuing crash investigation. (July 22) Windows Media 28K 80K Boston Bureau Chief Bill Delaney reports on the burial at sea. (July 22) Windows Media 28K 80K CLICK HERE FOR MORE VIDEO  KENNEDY'S DESCENT: Animation: Windows Media 28K 80K  SPECIAL: Remembering John F. Kennedy Jr.   • Profile  ALSO: Click here for more stories MESSAGE BOARDS: Kennedy tragedy Chat now: JFK Jr.'s body and plane located INTERACTIVE Memorial Mass A nation remembers Kennedy Kennedy Image Gallery

July 23, 1999
Web posted at: 11:01 p.m. EDT (0301 GMT)

In this story: Friends, relatives and hero 'World knew his name before he did' Carolyn 'a shining star' 'Call up Uncle Teddy and gloat' Public need to pay respects White House photo albums for families Plane wreckage being moved RELATED STORIES, SITES

NEW YORK (CNN) -- John F. Kennedy Jr. was remembered Friday as someone of "amazing grace," who, like his father before him, "had every gift but length of years."

At the private, religious ceremony to celebrate the lives of JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Sen. Edward Kennedy said his nephew "accepted who he was, but cared more about what he could and should become .... He had only just begun. There was in him a great promise of things to come."

The senator also noted that JFK Jr. was a husband of "a thousand days ... who adored the wife who became his perfect soul-mate."

Kennedy, 38, wife Carolyn, 33, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, 34, were killed when Kennedy's Piper Saratoga II crashed into the waters off Martha's Vineyard last Friday.

Lauren Bessette will be remembered at a separate, private service being planned by her family on Saturday at Christ Church, an Episcopal church in their hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Friends, relatives and hero

Friday's Mass of Resurrection began around 11 a.m. EDT at the Gothic-style St. Thomas More Catholic church on Manhattan's Upper East Side -- the church where JFK Jr.'s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, worshipped with her children.

John Jr.'s sister, Caroline, the last surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was among dozens of Kennedy family members present at the service.

Also among the 350 specially invited guests -- friends, celebrities and politicians -- were President Clinton, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and daughter Chelsea; Maurice Tempelsman, Onassis' longtime companion; and one of JFK Jr.'s hero's, Muhammad Ali.

'World knew his name before he did'

The Bessette sisters' mother and stepfather, Dr. Richard Freeman and his wife, Ann, were among the first to arrive at the church.

Lauren's twin sister, Lisa Ann, also attended, as did her father, William. The twins were the first children born to Ann and William Bessette, who divorced when the girls were young.

Mourners said Ann Freeman read from "Facts of Faith" by Henry Scott Holland; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg read from Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

Two eulogies were delivered from an altar decorated simply with a spread of white roses.

One eulogy was from Sen. Kennedy, the uncle who became a surrogate father to his nephew and niece after President Kennedy's 1963 assassination; the other was from Hamilton South, a friend of Carolyn Bessette's family.

Sen. Kennedy said John Jr. "was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it." The senator acknowledged the constant media attention his nephew had always received.

"The whole world knew his name before he did," the senator said. "From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our family, but to the American family."

At Clinton's request, the flag at the White House was lowered to half-staff

Carolyn 'a shining star'

When JFK Jr. contributed to that larger family, he did not require the limelight, according to his uncle.

"He was a son of privilege who founded a program called Reaching Up, to train better care-givers for the mentally disabled," the senator noted, adding that JFK Jr. did many good works, "quietly, without ever calling attention to himself."

Carolyn, a former fashion industry publicist, was John's "shining star," the senator said. Both she and her sister, an investment banker, were women of "high accomplishment (with) limitless possibilities."

The Catholic priest who presided at the Mass, the Rev. Charles O'Byrne, performed John Jr. and Carolyn's September 21, 1996, wedding ceremony on remote Cumberland Island along the Georgia coast.

O'Byrne also participated in Thursday's private memorial aboard the destroyer USS Briscoe, from which the cremated remains of the three crash victims were released by their families into the ocean.

'Call up Uncle Teddy and gloat'

There were two musical performances during the Mass -- from singer Wyclef Jean, formerly of the Fugees, and the "O Freedom Gospel Choir." Jean sang the Jimmy Cliff reggae anthem "Many Rivers to Cross," according to The Associated Press.

A member of the choir, John Adam, said the mood was celebratory. He said at a reception after the service that Sen. Kennedy sang the hymn "A Closer Walk With Thee."

The Kennedys requested the service not be broadcast. Sen. Kennedy's office in Washington released a text of his eloquent, sometimes humorous eulogy.

In it, Kennedy noted that when JFK Jr. was asked what he would do if he ever was elected president, his nephew said: "I guess the first thing is to call up Uncle Teddy and gloat."

Emotionally drained mourners, led by Sen. Kennedy, began emerging from the church about 12:30 p.m., about 90 minutes after the service began. The Clintons stayed inside another half hour.

The congregation then walked two blocks uptown to the landmark Convent of the Sacred Heart for a reception at the school Caroline Kennedy once attended. Several Kennedys walked hand-in-hand, their heads down and their eyes hidden by sunglasses. JFK Jr.'s sister and her family rode in a limousine as helicopters buzzed overhead.

Public need to pay respects

The Kennedy memorial service was private, but elsewhere people paid respects in their own ways. Children in a violin group mourned with their music on a street a block away.

Others stood in the blazing sun on street corners near the church .

"I'm very sad, and I think the country is very sad," said one woman. "I wanted to pay my respects to my memories of the Kennedy family and to the legacy that JFK Jr. is leaving to America and to the world, even though his mission was incomplete."

Across town at a Harlem funeral home, African-Americans also gathered to pay tribute to the son of a slain president who had ties to the Civil Rights movement.

"We can never forget John Kennedy Sr., the president, we can never forget Bobby Kennedy walking out in Alabama with George Wallace and the dogs and the water hoses with Dr. King ... they were in the struggle with us," said memorial organizer Isaiah Owens.

White House photo albums for families

The group that flew with the Clintons from Washington aboard Air Force One included Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who is married to Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; another of his daughters, Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle; and Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

Clinton brought with him three identical albums of White House photographs taken when he gave John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy a tour there last year. The albums were to be given to Sen. Edward Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and the family of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette.

Clinton ordered flags over the White House flown at half- staff for the day.

Plane wreckage moved

Wreckage of JFK Jr.'s plane was transported to Otis Air National Guard Base in Bourne, Massachusetts, where it will be studied by the National Transportation Safety Board

Pieces of the shattered single-engine Piper Saratoga were delivered Friday evening by the Navy salvage ship USS Grasp to the Newport Naval Station in Rhode Island.

About two hours later, a large yellow-and-black crane on the pier lifted the wreckage from the ship onto a flatbed 18- wheeler.

Earlier, the crane unloaded boxes of diving equipment from the ship -- including a large white-and-blue box with NAVY written on the side that contained the remote operated vehicle, or ROV, that spotted the wreckage underwater late Tuesday night.

The NTSB has said its probe into the cause of the crash could take six to nine months.

Correspondents Chris Black, John King, Gary Tuchman, Carl Rochelle, Gene Randall, Maria Hinojosa and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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