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Robert P. Fitzgerald, 83, grandson of ‘Honey Fitz’

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Mr. Fitzgerald (third in top row) in 1971 christened the first branch office of Harbor National Bank, of which he was the president. Also present (left to right) were his then-wife, Boston Mayor Kevin H. White, and the Fitzgerald children, Maria and Bobby.

Robert P. Fitzgerald had an ease with everyone he met that went beyond his family's political pedigree, which was substantial. He was a grandson of Boston Mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, and among his cousins were the Kennedys — Jack, Bobby, and Ted.

Mr. Fitzgerald finished graduate school the year before John F. Kennedy was elected president and worked on the campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, yet he was as likely to be found discussing the world with a service station owner in the North End as he was with relatives whose careers made history.

"He was brought up around a lot of success, yet he was a common, everyday, average guy," said his son, Robert Jr. of Needham.

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"He was kind of unique that way," his son added. "When you'd walk down the streets of Boston with him, it wasn't just the guys in suits who came over to say hello. He really knew everybody and enjoyed everybody."

Mr. Fitzgerald, whose career included computers, banking, and insurance, died of complications from cancer Oct. 5 in his home in the Prudential Center. He was 81 and formerly had lived for many years in Milton and Charlestown.

"My dad was a very interesting guy in that he really truly cared about people, and I'm sure you can say that about a lot of people, but in his case they really mattered," his son said.

He added that Mr. Fitzgerald, along with his longtime close friend Gerard Doherty, "went to the same sandwich shop two or three times a week and got the same thing, and they knew everybody in there."

A stellar athlete at Boston Latin School as a teenager, Mr. Fitzgerald traveled with his family one Christmastime to Palm Beach, Fla., a trip that interfered with his basketball team's practices for a post-holiday tournament at the old Boston Garden.

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When Rose Kennedy — his aunt and the mother of his politicians-to-be cousins — found out, she arranged for a YMCA to let Mr. Fitzgerald practice during his Florida vacation. That was not something Mr. Fitzgerald would flaunt in front of his friends.

Mr. Fitzgerald and his aunt, Rose Kennedy, mother of Mr. Fitzgerald’s cousins Jack, Bobby, and Ted, in 1962.

"I don't think they ever knew about it," he said in a 2009 interview for the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project. His teammates, he added, "knew that I was a relative but I didn't see any purpose in parading the fact that I was in Palm Beach and that I had practiced basketball. They were just interested in winning."

One of three brothers, Mr. Fitzgerald grew up in Milton. His father, John Francis Fitzgerald Jr., was a son of the former Boston mayor, a brother of Rose Kennedy's, and a longtime Boston Edison executive. His mother, the former Catherine O'Hearn, was a homemaker.

In the oral history, conducted for the Miller Center, which is affiliated with the University of Virginia, Mr. Fitzgerald recalled visiting his grandfather when the former mayor lived at the Bellevue Hotel on Beacon Street.

Honey Fitz "would spend the time with the grandchildren and try to educate them in the world of politics and how it worked, explaining many of the colorful people who were involved in the issues of the day," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "I remember at the hotel, you would walk in and there would be newspaper clippings scattered throughout the room. Grandpa would have sat and gone through all the papers and periodicals and have cut out the ones that interested him. He would then write a note on the article or a note on a piece of paper and send off his ideas to these people who were in the newspapers at that time."

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At Boston Latin, from which he graduated in 1953, Mr. Fitzgerald was class president, and he was inducted into the school's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994. His football and basketball career ended in the summer after high school, however, during a bout with polio, which was centered in his throat. Thereafter he spoke with a rasp, due to the initial paralysis of his vocal chords, and the constricted airway prevented him from participating in college sports.

Mr. Fitzgerald graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1957 and received a master's in business administration from Babson College in 1959. He was working for IBM when he began participating in the campaigns of his cousins by first working on Edward Kennedy's initial US Senate bid in 1962. "He and Teddy were very close," Mr. Fitzgerald's son said.

After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Mr. Fitzgerald went to pick up the president's mother at the White House on the day of the funeral.

"She had me come upstairs to the living quarters, and she was all ready to go to the cathedral, but she said, 'Bobby, I want to show you this now,' " Mr. Fitzgerald said in the oral history. "She took me around on the second floor of the White House and showed me all of the rooms, and especially she stopped in the Lincoln bedroom. She told me how historic that this was, and she said, 'I want you to remember this because you may never have this opportunity again.' Now here is a woman who is going to her son's funeral and takes the time and the interest, and has the sense of history, to do that with me."

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At the cathedral, Cardinal Richard Cushing met them and "she knelt down on one knee and took his hand, kissed his ring, and said, 'God bless you, Richard.' Then Cardinal Cushing took her by the arm, and we waited for the casket to come," Mr. Fitzgerald recalled. "They met the casket, and she walked in with the family and the cardinal. Here is [a] woman who is burying her son, who was so humble and gracious to the Church, that you know that her religion was so deep."

Mr. Fitzgerald, whose three marriages ended in divorce, began his banking career at Boston Safe Deposit and Trust and later became president of Harbor National Bank in Boston, staying until the bank was sold. He then went into the insurance brokerage business, first with Corroon & Black and later with International Insurance Group.

A life trustee of the American Ireland Fund, Mr. Fitzgerald served as a member of the John F. Kennedy Library Corp. and was particularly involved with negotiations for an early potential site in Cambridge.

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A service has been held for Mr. Fitzgerald, who in addition to his son Robert Jr. leaves another son, Paul of Northampton; three daughters, Maria of Weston, Rose Doherty of Needham, and Danielle Valle Gilchrist of Charlestown; and 10 grandchildren.

Though Mr. Fitzgerald also was frequently busy with work and many other boards, including for Boston Latin and Babson, "he was an unbelievable father," Robert Jr. said. "There were five of us, and I don't think he ever missed a sporting event, and that includes when we were away at prep school. He would always get in the car and make the haul."


Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.