His family was extremely well off
One of the most interesting facts about John F. Kennedy is the wealth of his family. JFK was the second of Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald's nine children. When JFK was only 29, his older brother Joe Jr. passed away in World War Two. He also had two sisters: Eunice, who started Special Olympics, a sports organization for individuals with disabilities, and Margaret, who trained to be a nun.
Kennedy was raised in a family where the siblings were expected to engage in fierce physical and mental competition. The family, which had deep ties to the Democratic Party, produced three presidential candidates: John, his brothers Robert and Ted. The family played touch football in their Hyannis Port vacation home, where they learned the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and Democratic Party politics. These games ultimately became famous.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy, his father, amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune through banking, smuggling, shipbuilding, the movie business, and as a savvy stock market trader. John F. ("Honey Fitz") Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston, was the father of his mother, Rose. They created trust accounts for their kids to ensure their long-term financial security. After leading the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph Kennedy went on to become the American ambassador to the United Kingdom. John worked as his secretary for six months in 1938, and he drew on that knowledge to write his senior thesis on Great Britain's lack of military readiness for Harvard University (B.S., 1940). The best-selling book Why England Slept was the result of his development of that idea (1940).
