Health records of the Kennedy children, maintained by their mother

The mother of nine, Rose Kennedy devised a card file system to track her children’s health; she bought this cedar box in Brookline to house the records. On this card for Jack she listed whooping cough, measles, chickenpox, scarlet fever, mumps, German measles and bronchitis. On subsequent cards she chronicled an appendectomy, tonsillectomy, and the constant struggle to keep up his weight.

While Jack grew up with every material advantage, he suffered from a series of medical ailments that mystified his doctors and would continue to plague him as an adult. He learned to underplay the effects of his illnesses and, later, to hide the physical suffering he would endure throughout his lifetime