Massachusetts

Museum showcases JFK’s favored Waldorf Astoria rocking chair

By Associated Press

In this circa 1948 photo provided by the Kennedy Family Collection, courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, members of the Kennedy family pose for a photo in Hyannis Port, Mass. They are from left, John F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy, Rose Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Patricia Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, and in foreground, Edward M. Kennedy. The Boston-based museum completed an 18-month project in 2018 to catalog and digitize more than 1,700 black-and-white Kennedy family snapshots that are viewable online, giving a nation still obsessed with "Camelot" a candid new glimpse into their everyday lives. (Kennedy Family Collection/John F. Kennedy Library Foundation via AP)

By Associated Press

HYANNIS, Mass. — The John F. Kennedy Museum on Cape Cod is showcasing a rocking chair from the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York favored by the late president.

The museum in Hyannis, where Kennedy’s famous summer compound is located, opened an exhibit on the chair earlier this month.

With its low seat and curved back, the chair provided comfort to help ease Kennedy’s chronic back pain from injuries suffered during World War II, according to the museum.

The Massachusetts Democrat eventually purchased more than a dozen of them for the White House, Camp David, Hyannisport, and Palm Beach, and his preference for the seats prompted a resurgence in the popularity of rocking chairs.

“It is so fitting that the rocking chair that brought so much comfort to President Kennedy has made it to his beloved Cape Cod, a special place where he sought solace throughout his life,” Wendy Northcross, the museum’s executive director, said in a statement.

The museum says Kennedy gifted the rocking chair to the Waldorf Astoria in 1962, in keeping with a tradition of presidents donating a keepsake as a remembrance of their stays in the hotel’s presidential suite.

The chair will be on loan to the Hyannis museum for the next two years while the New York property undergoes extensive restoration.

When the Waldorf Astoria reopens in 2023, the rocking chair will return as part of a permanent exhibit on the history of the hotel, which marks its 90th anniversary in October.

©2021 Cox Media Group

Most Read