Description
TLS signed “Jack Kennedy, Lt. U.S.N.R.,”
One page, 7.25″ x 10.5″, Hyannisport letterhead
October 6, 1944.
Letter to Warren ‘Hop’ Hopwood, about the project that would result in As We Remember Joe, a memorial volume privately printed in 1945 in honor of his brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who had been killed when his plane exploded over England a month earlier. In full: “For some time I have wanted to do something to perpetuate Joe’s memory among his immediate family and his close friends. I thought, perhaps, of getting together some essays, written by those who knew him well, which together with photographs could be placed in book form. It would be primarily as a gift for my mother and father and for anyone else who wished it. As I know you were always a great friend of Joe’s and that he held you in very high regard, I was wondering if you would care to help out by writing one. I would suggest that the essay could be any length up to five hundred words and that perhaps you could include in this what to you was Joe’s outstanding characteristic and perhaps an anecdote illustrating this on some other side of his character. Nothing is being said to my father or mother, as I should like to see it all together and finished before they are told about it.” He adds an autograph postscript, in full: “I know you are as busy as hell—but I hope you can work this in. Best of luck to you. Jack.” In fine condition.
As We Remember Joe was published at the University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1945 and contained twenty essays but none by Hopwood. In his foreword, Kennedy excuses those who might have contributed because they ‘are at this time fighting around the globe—or have, like Joe, died.’ It’s not known what became of Lt. Hopwood but there is an annotation at the top of the page: “Hon: Please save for scrap book.” A superb letter signed twice by Kennedy, using an extremely rare and unusual form of his early signature
