1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Then Dad suddenly dies on his way to work, setting Mum and the four deeply-connected Wood girls adrift -- just as the nation loses its handsome, young, Catholic president. When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply. And then the televised grace of Jackie Kennedy -- she too a Catholic widow with young children -- galvanizes Mum to set off on an unprecedented family road trip to Washington, D.C., to do some rescuing of her own.