Central Mass. fondly remembers Teddy.

Byline: TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Editor's note: U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy touched lives big and small in Central Massachusetts, in some cases changing their course and in others simply creating indelible memories. Here are some of their stories.

When Francis R. Carroll of Worcester turned on the television early yesterday, he saw the images of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and knew, without hearing a word, that the senator was gone.

"We have lost the greatest of the greatest of United States senators in our lifetime," said Mr. Carroll, whose friendship with Mr. Kennedy stretched back more than 30 years. "He was full of compassion and love, of concern for the elderly and the poor."

Mr. Carroll, chairman and chief executive officer of the Small Business Service Bureau in Worcester, recalled that when Mr. Kennedy came to Mechanics Hall for a dedication of the city's Korean War memorial, he asked the senator to include in his speech a poem written by a Worcester medic who was killed in action soon after he wrote it. Mr. Kennedy gave his speech and ended by reading the poem.

"It was the mark of a man who was very humble, and well-versed in the sacrifices made by men in war," said Mr. Carroll.

As a 16-year-old Worcester Boys Trade School student, Michael F. Kamendulis, 62, was working his Saturday job at the new YWCA in Worcester when a commotion outside drew him from his kitchen duties.

"I didn't know what was going on but you could tell it was a big deal," said Mr. Kamendulis of Millbury.

It was 1963, and Mr. Kennedy was speaking at the groundbreaking for the $5.1 million New Salem Street Redevelopment Project in Worcester. At the time, the YWCA had recently been completed and construction on a new public library was under way.

Mr. Kamendulis doesn't think he heard Mr. Kennedy's speech, but made a point of getting the senator's autograph, which he saved for more than 46 years, including through his tour of duty in Vietnam.

When he awoke yesterday to the news that Mr. Kennedy had died, Mr. Kamendulis easily found the autograph in his bureau drawer among other meaningful personal items that include First Communion pictures and old birthday cards.

"It's one of my most prized possessions," said the retired postal worker.

State Trooper Edward Ye has had the opportunity to shake hands with Mr. Kennedy on a few occasions but the two never spoke more than a few words, and the senator went to his grave never knowing that the spit-and-polished Asian man was named for him.

In late 1963, Mr. Ye's father was living in Rochester, N.Y., and was about to move to a new job as an electrical engineer at Mitre Corp. in Bedford, a U.S. Department of Defense contractor. It became clear that without the proper security clearances the Ye family would be sent back to China since the government was suspicious of the communist regime there.

But after hearing of their plight, Mr. Kennedy helped secure the proper clearances and helped Mr. Ye's father gain U.S. citizenship. They named their son after him. Most other troopers at the Brookfield Barracks where he works, and the staff at Baystate Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, where he is a physician's assistant, know him as Ed. But to his family he's Ted or Teddy.

James and Irene McNally, the owners of The Old Timer Restaurant in Clinton, consider Mr. Kennedy's 1992 visit to their restaurant a highlight, along with a snapshot taken of the McNallys with the senator.

"It's an important photo. I'd rate it just below a photo of the grandkids," Mr. McNally said. "Kennedy was just like any other person. No fancy flair about him. He was just one of us - the people's politician."

Alicia Lenahan, 53, of Brimfield doesn't have an autograph or photo of Mr. Kennedy, but says she has based her life's work in community service on a sentence from one of his speeches: "It's incumbent upon all of us, to the best of our ability and our capacity, to serve one another."

"I'm similarly motivated by that principle - to live your life in service to others," said Ms. Lenahan, senior vice president of community engagement for the United Way of Central Massachusetts.

Joseph G. Tortorelli, 65, president of Worcester Sound & Lights, recalled a long relationship with Mr. Kennedy, who first hired Mr. Tortorelli's company in 1962 to provide sound and other services for his campaign needs - rallies, press conferences, fund raisers and other events all over the state and beyond. Mr. Kennedy's confidence in his company taught Mr. Tortorelli a valuable lesson, he said, that helped shaped the success of the almost 50-year-old business.

"He put a lot of trust in my equipment and service and showed me that if you did the job right your customers will call you over and over again."

Several years ago, when Mr. Tortorelli found out Mr. Kennedy would be attending an event at Worcester's Gateway Park, he brought along his original 1952 Chevrolet sound truck. "I gave my best speeches out of this truck, and your father never let me down," Mr. Kennedy told Mr. Tortorelli's son Joseph M. Tortorelli.

Marilyn Foy Tebo, 63, of Shrewsbury was 18 when she accidentally bumped into Mr. Kennedy. It was 1963 and she and some friends at the hair dresser school she attended in Framingham walked to the local Eagles Club for lunch. She ordered a meatball sandwich and went to the jukebox to play a couple of tunes.

"Everybody started clapping. Foolishly, I thought they were clapping because I played the juke box," she recalled. "Then, my friend yelled for me to get over there and I walked across the floor in front of Ted Kennedy. I didn't know who he was at first. When I apologized, he said, `Oh, that's OK honey.' I said I thought they were clapping for me. He said, `maybe they were.'"

Ms. Tebo said the senator chatted with her for a while, asking her name and about the uniform she had on.

When Ms. Tebo and her friends went to pay for their meals, Mr. Kennedy came over and insisted on paying for Ms. Tebo's meatball sandwich. She gave him a cocktail napkin for his autograph.

On it, he wrote, "Best wishes in your successful long future of hairdressing."

Ms. Tebo said she has told the story of Ted Kennedy buying her a meatball sandwich all her life. The napkin is in a keepsake box at her brother's home in Florida.

"I always wished I could have told him that such a wonderful, kind gesture from somebody of his power had such an impact on me," she said.

Mr. Kennedy used to call Dennis Kennedy, owner of Kennedy's Restaurant in Marlboro, "Cousin Dennis," even though they only suspected that the two Irishmen were related distantly.

The senator and his family often stopped by the popular Maple Avenue restaurant when he was campaigning.

His last visit was about two years ago, when he, his wife, Victoria, and their dogs came by to stomp for local Democratic contenders.

"Any time a local politician on the Democratic ticket was running, he'd come down and just get the crowd moving. He was an incredible man. He just had a powerful way of speaking," Dennis Kennedy recalled yesterday in a telephone interview from his summer home in Maine.

"This is really a sad day," said the Kennedys' son, Michael, 47. "He reminded us every day how we should not forget the fight for the average person and to make sure that the government didn't forget the people who have needs with Social Security and health care and all those issues that are important to everyday folks."

Richard T. Salvadore only vaguely remembers Mr. Kennedy's brief visit to his parents' Westboro home in the early 1960s. His father, Paul, then chairman of the town's Democratic Committee, had invited the senator to speak at the high school.

Years later, before Richard was about to graduate in 1973, he applied for and was awarded one of Mr. Kennedy's nominations to attend the U.S. Naval Academy.

In 1984, Mr. Salvadore was a young lieutenant in the Marine Corps at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. When Mr. Kennedy visited MacDill Air Force Base, where Mr. Salvadore was stationed, Mr. Salvadore got his picture taken with the senator. The cherished photo is on his desk in Chicago.

"Every time I look at the picture, it creates some fond memories of all the respect for the impact he had on my life," said Mr Salvadore, 53, now a civilian who works in Internet technology. "As a young kid, I always had a dream of serving my country in the military. My goal was to go to Annapolis and Sen. Kennedy helped me fulfill that. I'll always be grateful for that."

When Stanley J. Nurek of the Gilbertville section of Hardwick died in 2001, a line is his obituary read, "He seconded Sen. Kennedy's nomination for U.S. Senate at the 1962 Democratic Convention in Springfield, the year Sen. Kennedy was first elected to the Senate."

It was a move Mr. Kennedy never forgot and that Mr. Nurek, who was known locally as "Mr. Democrat," spoke of often.

Less than a year before Mr. Nurek died, he enlisted Ronald and Pamela Shunaman of Hardwick to drive him to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis for a fundraiser, a place they never thought they'd see.

They agreed and were stunned when Mr. Kennedy, in the middle of his speech, noticed Mr. Nurek among the hundreds of supporters and blurted out, "Oh my God! Stanley Nurek's here. He seconded my nomination."

"It was amazing that he singled Stanley out from all those people," Mr. Shunaman said yesterday, adding that he was saddened to hear of Mr. Kennedy's death but grateful for the opportunity to meet him.

Contributing to this report were Telegram & Gazette staff members Donna Boynton, Andi Esposito, Bob Kievra, Aaron Nicodemus, Kim Ring, Elaine Thompson and Lisa Welsh.

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) Francis R. Carroll stands in front of an original Andy Warhol lithograph portrait of Sen. Kennedy. (2) Michael F. Kamendulis of Millbury holds a Telegram & Gazette photo taken in 1963, when Sen. Kennedy spoke at a groundbreaking in Worcester. (3) Irene and James McNally own the Old Timer Restaurant in Clinton, which Sen. Kennedy visited in 1992. (4) Alicia Lenahan, senior vice president, United Way of Central Massachusetts in Worcester, was inspired to help others by Sen. Kennedy. (5) Joseph G. Tortorelli of Worcester Sound & Lights is shown with Sen. Kennedy and the company's 1952 sound truck. (6) Richard T. Salvadore, right, is shown in 1983 as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps with Sen. Kennedy during his visit to U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. (7) John B. Nurek was a boy when he posed for a picture on his uncle Stanley J. Nurek's couch with Sen. Kennedy in Hardwick.

PHOTOG: (1, 2) T&G Staff/TOM RETTIG (3, 4) T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR (5) COURTESY OF JOSEPH G. TORTORELLI (6) COURTESY OF RICHARD SALVADORE (7) COURTESY OF JOHN B. NUREK