HYANNIS — John F. Kennedy learned he had won the tight 1960 presidential election at his summer home in Hyannis Port when, as the story goes, his 3-year-old daughter Caroline woke him up the morning after Election Day by saying, "Good morning, Mr. President."
JFK's presidency began in, and often returned to, Hyannis Port, and the Cape Cod part of Jack Kennedy's life that was so dear to him is remembered at the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum at 397 Main St.
The house at 111 Irving Ave., where Kennedy awaited the results of the election with advisers including Larry O'Brien of Springfield, is part of a "compound" of Kennedy family homes along and just off the Nantucket Sound-facing Hyannis Port beach. JFK's home, now owned by his nephew, Ted Kennedy Jr., and the others in the compound held the fascination of people from across the globe after the election, and has continued to do so in the 50 years since JFK was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
There's not particularly much to see if you venture into this quintessential Cape Cod neighborhood. Like anyone's home anywhere, the Kennedy compound is private. You can walk, ride a bike and even drive your car onto Irving Avenue, but mostly you'll see high hedgerows, fences and the peaks of the cottages. You could get a glimpse of the homes if you take a walk along the beach, starting from Eugenia Fortes Beach on Iyannough Avenue.
But if you really want to see what the Kennedy compound is – and was – like, that's where the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum comes in. Housed in the former Barnstable Town Hall (Hyannis is one of seven villages that make up Barnstable; Hyannis Port is a neighborhood within Hyannis), the JFK Hyannis Museum chronicles the 35th president's time on Cape Cod through exhibits, photographs and videos that range from newsreels and family home movies to Walter Cronkite's devastating announcement of the president's death.
"People come to the Cape to see the compound, but you really can't see it. This museum was started by the (Hyannis Area Chamber of Commerce) 21 years ago to basically bring the compound here," said John L. Allen, executive director of the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum Foundation, Inc. "Everybody thinks the compound is some major estate with walls and gates ... it's a neighborhood."
And the museum demystifies the notion of the Kennedys as a sort of royal family, accessed only by an elite few. To be sure, their wealth allowed JFK and his family to afford second homes in an oceanfront, well-to-do enclave, but they didn't retreat within it.
"They lived like locals here, too. They weren't locked up. They really were freely involved in going to restaurants, going across the street for clothing," Allen said. "They didn't give up their way of living on the Cape when he became president. It became a little harder, but it didn't stop."
Linda Meadors, of Buzzards Bay, visited the museum on a mid-November day with her father, Jack Walters, of Columbia, Mo., and her teen daughter Cassie. "(The Kennedys) all had ambition ... I appreciate the fact that they were all born with silver spoons in their mouths and still did something – they didn't just sit around," she said.
Tom Johnson, of Melrose, another visitor, recalled hearing about the assassination as a little boy. "I was playing with a friend, and even at 5 or 6, I knew it was something significant – when I got home my mother was on the phone with a friend, and she was crying ... I think it was the first time I saw my mother cry," he said.
11.09.2013 | HYANNIS -- Tom Johnson, of Melrose, looks at an exhibit on President Kennedy's summer White House in Hyannis Port. (Photo by Kris Deburro / The Republican)
For the president, Allen said, the Cape was where he could be himself, reconnect with the ocean and clear his thoughts to work on the great issues of his time. "If you look at him from the lens of the Cape, he came here to be rejuvenated, reinvigorated ... he loved the ocean," Allen said.
The museum presents a history of JFK's life in Hyannis, from his youth to his presidency. Exhibits include a timeline of his 34 months as president, showing major world and national events against a backdrop of the beach; a Kennedy family tree; a tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, a key supporter of the museum; and a display devoted to the 1960 campaign. A special exhibit this year,
"Days of Joy, Days of Sorrow," depicts the last five months of President Kennedy's life.
The museum is filled with photographs of JFK as a boy, youth, young man and president participating in the kind of family get-together activities that many people have experienced – tossing a ball around, playing in the sand, posing for group photos, blowing out candles on a birthday cake. The interiors of their seaside homes are not ostentatious.
I always come back to the Cape and walk on the beach when I have a tough decision to make. The Cape is the one place I can think, and be alone.
And there are many photos of Kennedy on the water, his passion for sailing evident.
It's fascinating to see photographs of the U.S. government at work at a place so many people visit to take a vacation – photos, for example, of meetings with cabinet members, or of the president conferring in person, or on the phone, with world leaders. For many weeks from 1961 to 1963, while
President Kennedy himself attempted to get away from it all, the requirements of his 24/7 job brought the nation's business to the beach.
"He had world visitors here, he had members of his cabinet and his advisers here. He'd have weekend meetings, but there was always time for the family," Allen said.
JFK's Hyannis Port home was not always the summer White House. The Secret Service felt the Kennedy compound was not secure enough, and the summer White House was moved about a half-mile west to houses on Squaw Island.
Printed at the top of one exhibit are words JFK spoke reflecting how much Cape Cod meant to him: "I always come back to the Cape and walk on the beach when I have a tough decision to make. The Cape is the one place I can think, and be alone." President Kennedy established the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961 to "preserve the natural and historic values of a portion of Cape Cod for the inspiration and enjoyment of people all over the United States."
President Kennedy's experience of the Cape is embodied in a statue outside of the entrance of the museum. Depicted walking barefoot on the beach in rolled up khakis, the statue captures both the man and the museum's mission of celebrating JFK's life on Cape Cod.
The JFK Museum is the first stop along the Hyannis Kennedy Legacy Trail throughout Hyannis. Among the other 10 stops are St. Francis Xavier Church, where the Kennedys worshipped; the JFK Memorial, a public park overlooking Hyannis Harbor whose design was outlined by the president's widow, Jackie; and behind the museum, across from a town parking lot, the state armory where
Kennedy claimed victory the morning after the '60 election.
The museum recently hosted a talk by historian Martin Sandler, author of "The Letters of John F. Kennedy," a collection of JFK's personal correspondence, including secret letters sent to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Sandler's talk was recorded by C-Span and will air on C-Span2 Book TV on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 a.m.
On Nov. 22, the 50th anniversary of the assassination, the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum Foundation will host a series of events including a wreath laying at the memorial on Ocean Street and a memorial Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church on South Street.
Ahead for the museum are plans for a major transformation. Five months ago, the foundation took over ownership and operation of the facility from the Chamber of Commerce. Allen said the museum will launch a capital campaign in 2014 as it embarks on a mission to improve the building and the exhibits it contains. The goal is to create an institution that adds cultural and educational programs to its core business of attracting visitors.
Allen, whose zeal for the museum's potential is made clear from his own memories of Kennedy to the JFK half-dollar he always carries in his pocket, sees the Cape Cod JFK museum as a "national point of interest done in a very local way."
"This museum is an ambassador for the Cape to the Kennedy legacy," he said. "People come with a story they want to say or tell, whether it's a direct experience of where they were when the president died, memories of people who lived around here and saw the Kennedys living as locals, or someone who's got a relative who's got an artifact or knows someone who did something with President Kennedy.
"They just open up with a story or something they want to say, with vivid detail, and for some it's very emotional," Allen said.
Through Dec. 1, the museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5. It is open for the Hyannis Spectacle of Trees from Dec. 5 through 14, but otherwise closed in December, January and early February. It opens for an abbreviated schedule in late February and March before reopening daily in mid-April.
Admission, which includes access to the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame in the building's basement, is $8 for adults, $4 for those 65 and over, $3 for children 10 to 17 and free for those under 10
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