Textual folder
Kennedy Family Collection
KFC-082-001
This volume, compiled by Kathleen Kennedy, documents her marriage to William “Billy” Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, including his death during World War II, as well as events in the years that followed. It contains diary entries written in blue and black ink and pencil, including some written by Billy Hartington, as well as clippings and printed ephemera. An additional entry on the title page post-dates the album’s creation and is written in a third hand, likely that of Kathleen’s mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, or her sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Diary entries are inscribed directly on the ruled pages in pencil and in ink. The bulk of the handwritten entries are from May to July, 1944, and include Kathleen's accounts of the newlywed couple's stay at the Swan Hotel; the bombardment of London, England, with V-1 rockets ("doodlebugs"); and on September 10, 1944, the report of the death of her husband. A later entry details the events of February 27, 1946, when Kathleen met Winston Churchill in Miami, Florida. Also pasted into the diary are newspaper and magazine clippings; a catalog of donations and gifts proffered in a Red Cross Gift Sale, held August 7, 1944, in Tutbury, Staffordshire, England, sponsored by the Meynell Hunt Agricultural Society; and an official numbered programme for the Red Cross and St. John Carnival held July 29, 1944, at the Municipal Sports Ground, Derby, Derbyshire, England, "Under the Patronage of the Marchioness of Hartington" (Kathleen’s title following her marriage to Billy).