My Search for JFK's Great Grandfather & Visit to Harvard Memorial Chapel

Today is the sixty-first anniversary of a Signing ceremony in the Oval Office of The White House for HR23, a law authorizing the Arbuckle Reclamation Project in Oklahoma on August 24, 1962. The signer of that legislation was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States.

In citing this event for this day in history in connection with President Kennedy, I wanted to share that information to use as a segue to chronicle a journey I undertook to search for the final resting place of his paternal great grandfather Patrick Kennedy.

Two weeks and one day ago, I began a series of what I call a pilgrimage to locate local sites that were significant to the Kennedy Family in Massachusetts. Since that time, I have visited six cemeteries and the place where President Kennedy was born. With aid from public information on the internet, I have located the final resting place of President Kennedy’s ancestors that came from Ireland, his grandparents, his parents, his sister, his other relatives, and even people who were acquainted with him.

Five days ago, after visiting three final resting places of President Kennedy’s acquaintances at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I then visited Cambridge Cemetery which was within walking distance. As I chronicled in my previous blog entry, I attempted to search for the final resting of President Kennedy’s paternal great grandfather. I had previously looked on the internet at a website called “find a grave,” which is an online database for final resting places, and he was supposedly buried here. There was no photograph of Patrick Kennedy’s grave on the website, although there was a map that showed his supposed location.

When I arrived at the coordinates that google maps supplied, I found no marker or anything indicating that he was buried there. An employee from the cemetery drove up from his car and asked if I needed help. I told him I was here to locate the resting place of Patrick Kennedy, who was JFK's great grandfather. He asked all the right questions, and he suggested that I come back during a weekday during office hours so they could identify where he could be buried. I have chosen this morning to return to Cambridge Cemetery to try to get some answers and bring closure to my search for him. 

So, perhaps you are wondering, who was this Patrick Kennedy that I have been searching for? He was an immigrant, born in Wexford, Ireland and when he was twenty-seven years old, he sailed to America on the boat called the Washington Irving. While on deck, he met Bridget Murphy, who was from the same county as him. Five months after their arrival in Massachusetts, they married on September 26, 1849. The couple had three children. Tragically, her husband Patrick contracted cholera and died at the age of thirty-five. He would die on November 22, 1858, one hundred and five years to the day before his great grandson John F. Kennedy would be assassinated in 1963.

Books on the Kennedy Family, indicate that he was buried at Cambridge Cemetery soon after his life came to an end. However, it is unclear to me if there is any tombstone that marks the location of his burial. This is the reason why I have returned to Cambridge Cemetery this morning and chronicle today's journey in my quest to find the location. I was prepared for disappointment in case nothing could be done or found.

I woke up very early this morning and although I did not have to go to work until 4:00 in the afternoon, I chose to go to the cemetery today since their office would be closed on the weekends and open from 7:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon. This was my only chance to complete this quest as soon as possible, otherwise I would have to wait until next week and I did not want to postpone my trip. Now was the time. I arrived at the cemetery minutes after it opened and made my way to the office. 

 

An administrative assistant named Maureen unlocked the door at let me in. I told her what that I was looking for the final resting place of Patrick Kennedy and showed her printed copy of his profile on "find a grave." She checked the database on the computer at her desk and couldn't find his location. Then she went into area in the office known as the vault, where most of the records are kept.

She looked through the files in the size of index cards to look for where the plot was, but nothing was there. The only Patrick Kennedy we could find was laid to rest there in 1971, but he was not the Patrick Kennedy I was looking for. Maureen mentioned that I could check with the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts to look at the death certificate or perhaps the Cambridge Historical Society. I thanked her for her efforts and left soon afterwards. I was satisfied that I tried my best and that I at least received an answer, even if it was not the one that I was hoping for.

With some time to spare, I decided to walk to Mount Auburn Cemetary to revisit the final resting place of Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.

I then took photos of my hardcover copies of two of his books at his grave for a social media post I intend to share on his birthday. 

I intend to purchase maybe two or three secondhand copies of other books that he wrote, which I hope to receive some time before his birthday in October. I already ordered a first edition hardcover copy of "The Imperial Presidency," which he published in 1973. I will try to obtain a copy of "The Age of Jackson" and/or maybe one or two books from "The Age of Roosevelt" series that he never completed. 

In the hour I spent Arthur Schlesinger's place of rest, I sat down and read the prologue and first chapter from my paperback copy of his Pulitzer Prize winning book "A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House," and also meditated on what he wrote about. The serene atmosphere helped me to reflect on his words. 

After spending almost an hour there, I decided to leave. I then took the 71 bus and returned to Harvard Station. However, the bus to get home would not arrive for another nineteen minutes so I decided to occupy some time before leaving. I first thought of going to the Harvard Coop, to take more photos of books that I really wanted to own. However, it was closed until 10:00 in the morning and since I was not planning to stay until the store opened, I chose to head to the campus of Harvard University to walk in the same footsteps as John F. Kennedy and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. 

Upon my arrival at Harvard Yard, I found that students were moving in the dormitories that day. There was excitement in the air as incoming students were getting ready to begin their futures at the school. I wish I could have been happy for them, but it only made me wish that I was at their age and more intelligent just so I could connect with them and have something to look forward to. Though it is not their fault, seeing them on the campus only made me feel that my future was behind me. I see that I truly haven't moved on from my college experience.

Despite how I felt, I decided to go on a small mission to look for something in connection with the Kennedy Family. I had already written two blogs of locating sites connected to John F. Kennedy at Harvard in 2021, but there was one item that I did not get the chance to document until now. 

I walked over to Harvard Memorial Chapel, where I had visited inside the building only twice before. The last time I visited was in 2019 before I moved to the Boston area where I now reside. I wish I had visited inside more often. It would have been a sanctuary for me to find refuge from the troubles I was facing. I had tried to enter the building since 2019, but to no avail. I wondered if today was the day that I would finally enter in after all these years.

I walked up the stairs tried to turn the doorknob to enter. To my surprise, the door opened.

At long last, I went to the foyer of the church and stepped into the empty sanctuary. I entered inside respectfully and with reverence as this was a place of worship.

On the right side of the sanctuary walls, there was a list of names honoring graduates of Harvard University who were killed during the Second World War.

My eyes scanned the wall looking for a specific name from the graduating class of 1938.

I then found the name I was looking for. It was the name of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr.

He was the oldest child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy and brother to future President of the United States – John F. Kennedy. He was killed in action while serving as a land-based patrol bomber pilot during World War II on August 12, 1944.

I wish I could have stayed longer to reflect, but I only had a few minutes to spare. I soon left Harvard Memorial Chapel, hoping to one day return.   

I returned to Harvard Station with one minute to spare. The bus soon arrived, and I got onboard to return home where I am now typing this chronicle. While I was disappointed that I could not locate the final resting place of Patrick Kennedy, I at least saw the place where his great grandson's name was honored in service to his country. One thing they both had in common apart from their shared heritage was the fact that their lives ended at such a young age. Patrick was thirty-five. Joe Jr. was twenty-nine. As for as other commonalities, they both traveled across the Atlantic Ocean for different reasons and died in lands in which they were not born in. They were equally missed by people who loved them.

After reflecting upon seeing the names of those Harvard graduates who gave their lives during the second world war, I wanted to conclude this blog entry with some words from John F. Kennedy, who himself was a veteran of that same war. I thought these words towards the end of his remarks he delivered at an induction ceremony for Navy recruits in Charleston, South Carolina on July 4, 1942, would be appropriate to share here.

He said, "This war will not be easy. It may be very long. We have only begun to taste its hardships, and when it is over, all will not be green fields and rolling pastures. It is then that we will really face our greatest task. Now, our job is comparatively simple. We know our objective – the defeat of our enemies. After the war, the path will not be so clearly set. Weary of war, we may fall ready victims to post-war cynicism and disillusionment, as we did at the end of the last war. We had fought that war to make the world safe for democracy. Because it appeared that our victory might not be complete, that the world would not overnight become really safe for democracy, that we were not going to gain everything for which we had fought, we turned away from Europe in bitterness and lost completely our victory. Let not that happen again. Let us realize that the victory will be only half won when the fighting ends. We must finish the job in the years of peace that follow. Once more, we fight for a high cause. Once more, at the end of the fighting, we may find we have not won all that we had hoped. But let that not discourage and dishearten us.

Even if we may not win all for which we strive – even if we win only a small part – that small part will mean progress forward and that indeed makes our cause a worthy one.

Other men at other times have been willing to make great sacrifices for causes which have appeared difficult and sometimes impossible. We have received from them a heritage, some of it evil and bad, but more of it good. Now it has become our turn to renew that heritage, to give testimony to our belief in it.

The sacrifice is not too great. As young men, it is, after all, for our own future that we fight. And so, with a firm confidence and belief in that future, let us go forward to victory."