repose

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. — As Sen. Edward Kennedy's family prepares for his public memorials, people are already visiting the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to pay their respects.

About 20 people were lined up before the library opened at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Kennedy's body will travel the 70 miles from Cape Cod to lie in repose at the library he helped develop in tribute to one of his slain brothers.

Austin Howe, a 15-year-old a high school student from Laurel, Md., came with his father to see the museum and pay his respects to the senator, who died Tuesday at age 77 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.

Howe says Kennedy was "someone who made a difference."

Family members will attend a private Mass at Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound at noon Thursday, and the motorcade is scheduled to leave around an hour later.

Kennedy will be buried at the Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former president Kennedy and former senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Other family members buried on the famous hillside include former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and the former president's baby son, Patrick, who died two days after birth.

Kennedy is eligible for burial at Arlington because of his service in Congress as well as his two years in the army from 1951 to 1953. He was a private first class and served in the military police at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, located at that time in Paris.