University of Virginia Library

Stranger Than Fiction

To the best of my knowledge
the following is true. The
information was obtained from
mutual friends of the parties
involved and overly talkative
domestic help. Two relatives of the
people concerned, Misses Caroline
Kennedy and Maria Shriver, were
both reluctant to solicit any
information and to confirm
anything already known by
informed sources.

Everyone has heard of
Hyannisport, Massachusetts, but it
wasn't always this famous. At one
time, it was a small summer resort,
actually a village, on the south
shore of Cape Cod. No one had ever
heard of it except those who lived
there.

People from Massachusetts, New
York, and Pennsylvania who
preferred quiet summers, almost
completely void of the whirlwind,
coming-out party, Long Island type
of summers, found quiet relaxation
in their weather-beaten shingled
homes of Hyannisport. To be sure,
the staid placidness of Hyannisport
made its geographical proximity to
Boston more than a coincidence.

No one in this mostly
conservative Republican village
seemed to mind the presence of
Democrat Senator John Kennedy
and all the other members of his
family, although they were
newcomers by comparison to
almost everyone else there.

Edward Kennedy's notoriously
wild splash parties were tolerated
by the older people with a grain of
salt. They were eventually put to an
end anyway when his brother
complained that they were possibly
ruining his chances in the
presidential campaign.