Book Brings New View of JFK and Family

I’ll never forget the day my cousin became a celebrity. Especially since it was just a few weeks ago. North Shore native Linda Corley and I grew up 200 miles apart and never quite seemed to get together much because of the distance. Even during high school years when I was at Loyola Academy in Wilmette reading every JFK book I could get my hands on in the school library (I was born on his election day) and Linda was just a few miles down Lake Street at Regina Dominican our paths rarely crossed except for big family functions.

But I found myself driving down the Edens toward downtown Chicago and contemplating that my same-age cousin was about to become a household name or at least get more than her 15 minutes of fame. Linda was about to start a whirlwind national book tour with a book signing on State Street. How many time had I made this trip to see and meet the like of Bill Kurtis and Oliver North, Leonard Nimoy and Charles Osgood?

Our American History Cousin

In between several signings in Chicago and multiple news media appearances (a second round comes later this month) I got to meet anew the great granddaughter of the Corleys of County Mayo and the new author of the very November-appropriate The Kennedy Family Album (2008 Running Press), a remarkable collection of mostly private photographs taken by Palm Beach society photographer Bob Davidoff.
Before his death in 2004, Linda was chronicling his story and unique photographs from nearly 50 years as part of her 20 year career as a producer, writer and occasional show host for the PBS station in Miami. A winner of six Emmys and the brains behind the decidedly Miami version of Chicago’s wildly popular Check, Please!, Linda would sift through time and photographs with Davidoff, who was befriended by Rose Kennedy in 1959 and gained entrée to the inner circle of private family gatherings ever after.

Although all the Kennedy siblings, offspring and elders peak out from behind the color and black and white heretofore undocumented history of all things outside the Beltway Kennedy… the most poignant memories in the book call up fresh images of the nation’s fallen president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death in November 1963 in Dallas Texas… far from the leisure and quiet intimacy of the presidential couple secretly embracing goodbye near the end aboard Jack and Jacqueline’s yacht the Honey Fitz.

November 22nd, 1963

“It really goes back to my first memory,” Linda Corley recalls. “I remember my Mom and I watching Walter Cronkite announce that the President was dead. I’m not sure I fully understood (Corley had just turned 3) but I clearly remember how stunned my mom was by the news.”

The book reveals a little known fact among the idyllic palms and vacation scenes of South Florida… a man had aborted at the last minute an attempt to assassinate then President-elect JFK with a car bomb. Security was tight thereafter near what became known as the Winter White House.

Most of the Davidoff photographs of the Kennedy family now reside in the archives and displays of the John F. Kennedy Presdential Library and Museum. One Kennedy opens the book with a forward that speaks to the promise of the future and the pleasant reflections on the past.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy writes, “Bob Davidoff was a magnificent photographer and a loyal friend. His remarkable personality and charming sense of humor had us all smiling whenever he aimed his camera our way.”

In weaving a tapestry of the private side of the Kennedys with her words sparingly yet descriptively telling the many facets of private and public life, Corley also gained a unique insight into what happened when “Camelot-by-the-Sea” went overseas.

“When JFK made his famous trip back to Ireland it had a tremendous impact on those people, to see one of their own as leader of the free world,” she remarks on a late Fort Lauderdale evening, where she now resides with children and a cruise ship captain husband. “I was doing a book signing at the JFK library last month and I heard the most wonderful Irish accents approaching. As they introduced themselves I learned they were an Irish couple that were so moved by his visit that they had to come to America and see his accomplishments on display. That tells you what his impact was.”

The Last Photograph

As Linda returns home to Chicago later this month to sign more books and tell tales on radio, TV and in print, one image in the book seems especially heartrending. It’s the tale of a homecoming that never was.

A confident and smiling Kennedy, holding his Florida sunglasses as he strides for Air Force One in a dark suit, had some last handshakes and greetings to attend to, as Linda Corley writes, "As Kennedy approached the plane, he shook hands and said good-bye to a few of the Florida statesmen that stood on the tarmac. 'I raised my hand in a farewell wave, still clicking away,' recalled Davidoff. 'And with a big smile upon his face he returned the gesture and said ‘see you in a couple weeks.’”

Four days later, the president flew to Texas.

Corley’s words and Davidoff’s photographs remind us of the preciousness of time and the enduring bonds of family. Each day counts and every memory dear. We never really know how much time God has granted us on the Earth, only that He wants us to live for each other. So when Linda comes back to Chicago this month I’ll make time to see her and have a big smile for a cousin and kindred spirit who seems more like a long-lost twin than a distant cousin.

See ya Linda. See you in a couple of weeks.

E-mail Jim McClure at IrishRoverJim@aol.com