<P> Reporter Jerry Thompson is assigned to track down the meaning of "Rosebud" shortly after Kane's highly publicized death . Despite interviewing all of Kane's living acquaintances, he never finds it . In truth, the word "Rosebud" was written on the sled Kane was given by his parents as a little boy, and left behind at his mother's boarding house when he was sent away to live with Thatcher . It is implied in the film that Kane finds the sled in a warehouse around the time he first meets Susan . The sled is burned in an incinerator after Kane's death, along with other possessions seen as trash by Xanadu's departing staff . It symbolises the innocence and love stolen from Kane when he was taken from his parents . </P> <P> Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore) was Kane's second wife . She is evidently low class and did not recognize Kane when they first met in the mid-1910s . While Gettys found evidence that implicated Susan as Kane's mistress, the film does not make it clear whether or not she really was . However, a mere two weeks after his first wife divorced him in 1916, Kane married Susan . </P> <P> Susan was an aspiring opera singer when she and Kane first met, but is not particularly talented . Despite this, Kane tried to force her into a career as an opera singer, even building an opera house specifically for her, but he was unsuccessful . Susan is the last of Kane's friends to leave him as well as the original owner of the snow globe he drops after saying "rosebud". As of 1941, she is still living and running a nightclub ("El Rancho") in Atlantic City, which is where she is interviewed by Jerry Thompson . </P> <P> Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) was a close friend of Kane and is generally acknowledged to represent the morality and idealism Kane himself loses as the film progresses . According to Mr. Bernstein, he came from a wealthy family that lost all their money and met Kane in college . In 1941 Jedediah lives in a nursing home in Manhattan, where he is interviewed by Jerry Thompson . </P>

The snow globe that charlie drops after he says rosebud originally came from