The Middleville Chair that Ended up Rocking John F. Kennedy President of the United States

Standard
The Middleville Chair that Ended up Rocking John F. Kennedy President of the United States

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  14 May 1963, Tue,  Page 2

The health benefits of rocking were introduced to the American public when President John F. Kennedy was prescribed time in a rocking chair by his physician in 1955 to help relieve his chronic back pain. The President found his rocker to be so beneficial that it accompanied him on Air Force One and around the world. Kennedy also bought rockers for Camp David and the family estate, and was even known to give the chairs as gifts to friends and heads of state.

Screenshot 2017-09-20 at 14.jpg

b99147285z.1_20131121171713_000_gel3ia9n.1-1.jpg

Stock photo– not the Middleville chair.

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  23 Jun 1979, Sat,  Page 23

The Kennedy Rocking Chair . . . you will recall, some weeks back, I recounted the tale about the famous rocking chair the late president used in the Oval Office in Washington actually originated from the Ottawa Valley. Well, here’s an update. It appears Blake McKend-ry, the well-known former dealer in Ottawa and later the Perth area, was commissioned by the Canadian government to find a suitable gift for the president. Of course, Kennedy’s back problems were well publicized, as was his love for rocking chairs, and it was decided such an example would be ideal. Clayton Hands, the auctioneer, tells me the chair was purchased 20 years ago, in Lanark, by Blake McKendry, at the Bill Langstaff estate auction for $65. The chair must have been a gem to bring a price that high that long ago.

CLIPPED FROM

The Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

20 Jun 1980, Fri  •  Page 15

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (USA)

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

relatedreading

Why I will Never Write a Book like The Death of a President

The Whiskey Keg Chair of Lanark County

unnamed (1)

About lindaseccaspina

Before she laid her fingers to a keyboard, Linda was a fashion designer, and then owned the eclectic store Flash Cadilac and Savannah Devilles in Ottawa on Rideau Street from 1976-1996. She also did clothing for various media and worked on “You Can’t do that on Television”. After writing for years about things that she cared about or pissed her off on American media she finally found her calling. She is a weekly columnist for the Sherbrooke Record and documents history every single day and has over 6500 blogs about Lanark County and Ottawa and an enormous weekly readership. Linda has published six books and is in her 4th year as a town councillor for Carleton Place. She believes in community and promoting business owners because she believes she can, so she does.

One response »

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s