Like Madeleine Albright, Catholic, John Kerry, discovered as an adult a hidden ancestry that showed his father's family had been Jewish shortly before emigrating from Europe to America. What more could be learned about this presidential candidate's grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry, formerly known as Fritz Kohn?
Frederick A. Kerry
Rosemary Isabel Forbes made an odd choice when she married Richard John Kerry, whose father, Frederick (Fred) A. Kerry, who shot and killed himself at the Copley Plaza Hotel in November 1921.
Fred Kerry had been born in Bennisch, then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, around 1873 to the Benedict Kohns (one source says Fred was "Fritz" Kohn, son of a Jewish brewer in what is now Horni Benesov, Czechoslovakia, and changed his name to Frederick Kerry in 1901 or 1902 and then converted to Catholicism). He was married to a college-educated musician, Ida Loewe from Hungary, and they had a four-year-old son, Eric Frederic Kerry, when they departed in 1905 from Genoa, Italy to live in Chicago. His business address there was 1744 First National Bank building, where he was extremely busy, judging from a somewhat comical news item that appeared in the Racine Daily Journal on October 11, 1909 under the headline, "Ran an Auto into North Side Saloon":
His office at #1744 in the First National Bank Building was diagonally opposite the famed Marshall Field stores in downtown Chicago at the time. The Reform Judaism Journal in the Fall 2003, just as John Kerry's presidential campaign was taking off, reported that:
During those years in Chicago, Sears was not in the best of health, according to this item from the Lawrence, Kansas, Journal World in 1908, a year before Kerry was frantically crashing his car into the saloon in Racine, and shortly before he moved to the Boston area:
The American Review of Shoes & Leather reported in its February 1920 issue that F.A. Kerry had recently severed his relationship with the J.L. Walker Co., where he had been treasurer at their offices at 601 Washington Street in Boston. By the end of 1920 they had sold their large home with detached quarters for a chauffeur and moved into a townhouse--487 Boylston in Brookline, evidenced by ta small item that appeared in a Boston Globe column entitled "Much Activity at Brookline, With Many Parcels Sold":
Perhaps the Downing property was held only in Ida's name because he worked with companies with debt problems, to avoid potential losses; or possibly Ida was independently wealthy.
Mildred Gladys Kerry, a daughter, had been born in Chicago in the summer of 1909, and the youngest child, Richard John, did not come along until 1915, several years after the family had relocated to Brookline. Nevertheless, Kerry's name and address (10 Downing Road) were listed, among a group of six eminent Boston area employers appointed to the Retail Store Wage Board in 1915, an indication of his strong business and political connections:
The last job Kerry held has never been reported elsewhere, appearing only in State Department files. When Fred and Ida Kerry applied for passports in July 1921, Daniel J. Lyne, then a young attorney who handled business bankruptcies and reorganizations in Boston, signed an affidavit swearing, as President of the New England Mercantile Company in Boston, he had requested that Kerry travel to various countries in Europe on behalf of that business. Lyne, less than ten years out of Harvard Law, was a junior associate in a law firm headed by Col. Edward L. Logan set up in August 1919:
The Logan family were wealthy Irish brewers living at 560 East Broadway in South Boston at the home of Lawrence J. Logan.
Edward was the eldest of six siblings, all single adults still living
in their parents' home in 1920, the year Edward married. The only lawyer
in the family, he had two brothers working with their father in the brewery and importing
trade as well as being involved in the 9th Regiment of the Boston
guard, which the elder Logan had commanded during the Spanish American
War. Col. Edward Logan, the attorney for whom Lyne worked, would soon be
named a brigadier general in charge of the 101st Infantry, 26th
Division, that absorbed the regiment. Lyne would serve as an active
pallbearer at Logan's Catholic funeral 20 years later.
Intriguingly, in 1930 a son born to Daniel Lyne and his wife would be named Kerry Richard Lyne. It could, however, be only a coincidence, since Daniel's father, Eugene Lyne, had been born in County Kerry, Ireland. Another fascinating coincidence is that one of Lyne's associate attorneys, Stewart C. Woodworth, lived in the same set of townhouses, only a few doors from where the Kerry family lived after selling their Downing Road home. This neighbor was married to Coline Ingersoll, daughter of Colin Mcrae Ingersoll, Jr. from an old New Haven family. Coline's brother was Ralph McAllister Ingersoll, about whom it was said in RALPH INGERSOLL A Biography, by Roy Hoopes:
They were prepared to visit Switzerland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, and Austria, and departed in September 1921. Records indicate Ida and the children returned from Europe, embarking from Southampton, England on October 5, 1921, only six weeks before Fred Kerry allegedly committed suicide in a Boston hotel. Fred's name did not appear on the same passenger manifest, however, and there is, in fact, no indication he returned at all, unless under another name. Did he, in fact, die in that Boston hotel room or was it simply a ruse to cover for his failure to return from Europe?
Mildred would graduate from the Runkle School in Brookline at the end of the spring term in 1922, only a few months after her father's death. In July that year Ida Kerry sailed again with Mildred and young Richard to Vienna ostensibly to have a medical procedure performed. While she recuperated, Mildred contracted infantile paralysis, otherwise known as polio.
It should be noted that during the nine months they had been away, her affairs were being handled by none other than Daniel J. Lyne's law firm. Despite stories that have later surfaced saying Fred Kerry had left his family nothing, all indications are totally opposite. Mildred was being treated, according to Ida's passport extension application (below) by one of Vienna's most eminent pediatricians, Prof. Dr. Knopfelmacher.
The eldest son, Eric, had not made the trip as he was then at Yale. Upon graduation he would marry and move to Manhattan to engage in the oil business. Mildred survived the illness and returned from Bremen to their Brookline townhouse with Ida and Richard in June 1924. Ida would make a voyage almost every year thereafter between 1926 and 1931, taking Richard in 1930, Mildred in 1931, and both in 1938. By 1935, if not earlier, both Ida and Mildred lived in Sarasota, Florida at Bay Island, but no census record for 1930 can be found for either of them.
What was really going on?
© 2004 by Linda Minor
"So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
Benjamin Disraeli, in his novel, Coningsby,published in London (1844)
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| Fred Kerry |
Fred Kerry had been born in Bennisch, then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, around 1873 to the Benedict Kohns (one source says Fred was "Fritz" Kohn, son of a Jewish brewer in what is now Horni Benesov, Czechoslovakia, and changed his name to Frederick Kerry in 1901 or 1902 and then converted to Catholicism). He was married to a college-educated musician, Ida Loewe from Hungary, and they had a four-year-old son, Eric Frederic Kerry, when they departed in 1905 from Genoa, Italy to live in Chicago. His business address there was 1744 First National Bank building, where he was extremely busy, judging from a somewhat comical news item that appeared in the Racine Daily Journal on October 11, 1909 under the headline, "Ran an Auto into North Side Saloon":
How It HappenedFrederick Kerry, 1744 First National Bank building, Chicago, with his chauffeur, started from that city on a trip to Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis and other northwestern cities. Night had set in when the came into the city, but being anxious to reach Milwaukee they decided to go on through. The chauffeur was tired and Mr. Kerry took the wheel to relieve him. They inquired the best streets to take and were directed up North Main and High thence west to Douglas avenue and on to the city of breweries. Mr. Kerry ran the machine at a high speed, in fact twice as fast as the law allows. Reaching the corner of North Main and High he was going at such a clip that he did not notice the turn in time to get around safely and he went flying past.
The Wrong ClutchAs soon as the machine was brought to a stop he made an effort to back and turn around. In some manner he operated the wrong transmission lever and sent the machine back at full speed instead of ahead and the automobile jumped the curbing and before the clutch could be thrown out or changed crash went the back of the machine into the window and the panic and excitement was on. Mr. Kerry and his man leaped out, escaping the flying glass and no one was hurt. He entered the sample rooms, explained how the accident happened and that he was perfectly willing to pay all damages and was about to depart, the automobile not being disabled, when the officers came and placed him under arrest 0n charge of fast driving.
Put Up the MoneyHe invited the officers to enter the machine and he gave them a ride to the police office. Here he put up $25 and it was agreed that he appear on October 22 for trial. Mr. Kerry said that he was in business at Chicago; that he believed when another man's property was damaged through no fault of the owner, it was the duty of the person, who did the damage to pay for it and that was what he proposed to do in the case of the wrecked saloon front. He left and continued on his way to St. Paul, where he said he had important business.
October 18, 1909Auto Driver Who Ran Into Saloon FrontFred Kerry, the Chicago man who backed his auto through the window of the Weber Saloon on High Street last Sunday, appeared through his attorney, Peter Meyers. A plea of guilty was entered and a fine of $10 and costs was assessed. The amount of $13.34, was paid.
Appears Through Attorney.
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| Marshall Fields' clock at left |
The Kerrys settled in Chicago, ... [and on] June 21, 1907, he filed his initial citizenship papers with Illinois' Cook County Circuit Court. By 1908, he was listed in a business directory with an office on Dearborn Street in Chicago's famous Loop. In 1910, the year [after] his daughter Mildred was born, he had made it into the Chicago Blue Book, a catalogue of notable city residents. By February 6, 1911, he had filed his naturalization petition, which was witnessed by the highly respected State Street merchant Henry Lytton and by Frank Case, a business manager at Sears Roebuck. Kerry had assisted in the reorganization of Sears, and by the following year he was promoting himself as a "business counselor" under the title "Frederick A. Kerry & Staff."
During those years in Chicago, Sears was not in the best of health, according to this item from the Lawrence, Kansas, Journal World in 1908, a year before Kerry was frantically crashing his car into the saloon in Racine, and shortly before he moved to the Boston area:
Fred Kerry had become well known as a reorganizer of businesses in trouble. After helping revive Sears, Roebuck's reputation, Kerry had left Chicago for Boston. His goal was to help the Bacon family resuscitate the bankrupt Siegel Stores at the corner of Washington and Essex streets. By 1917 it became clear to Fred Kerry, vice president from 1914 to 1917 of W&A Bacon, that it, too, would fail. He resigned when Bacon went into receivership, but he quickly rebounded, landing a job with J.L. Walker & Co. that lasted almost three years.That the mail order house of Sears & Roebuck has lost $11,000,000 in business in the past nine months, is the amazing statement of the Merchants Trade Journal for September. The article therein is copied from the Wall Street Journal of July 17th which is supposedly made up from the semi-annual statement of the company and which should, therefore, be accurate. It is stated that the gross sales of the Sears Roebuck company are $11,000,000 less than in the nine months period preceding. Sears & Roebuck were indicted in the federal courts for the district of Des Moines about nine months ago and the Merchants Trade Journal attributes this loss of business to the effect which this fact has had upon the people of the country. The advertising which is being done by home merchants and the aggressive policy which is being adopted has probably had as great an influence on their business as a mere charge that Sears & Roebuck have used the mails to defraud.SALES FALLING OFF. Big Mail Order House Losing Business by Millions.
The American Review of Shoes & Leather reported in its February 1920 issue that F.A. Kerry had recently severed his relationship with the J.L. Walker Co., where he had been treasurer at their offices at 601 Washington Street in Boston. By the end of 1920 they had sold their large home with detached quarters for a chauffeur and moved into a townhouse--487 Boylston in Brookline, evidenced by ta small item that appeared in a Boston Globe column entitled "Much Activity at Brookline, With Many Parcels Sold":
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| Ida Kerry sold 10 Downing in Brookline |
Mildred Gladys Kerry, a daughter, had been born in Chicago in the summer of 1909, and the youngest child, Richard John, did not come along until 1915, several years after the family had relocated to Brookline. Nevertheless, Kerry's name and address (10 Downing Road) were listed, among a group of six eminent Boston area employers appointed to the Retail Store Wage Board in 1915, an indication of his strong business and political connections:
The wage board was composed of the following:
- Representing the Public—Prof. Carroll W. Doten, chairman, 65, Garfield st, Cambridge; Mrs Frank H. Hallowell, Suffolk road, Brookline; B. Preston Clark, 171 Marlboro. St.
- Representing the employers—B.A. Bardol, 59 Temple pl; Walter A. Hawkins, 1801 Beacon st; George B. Johnson, Hotel Somerset; Fred E. Kerry, 10 Downing road, Brookline; Abbott B. Rice, 106 Summer st, Newton Center; S. H. Thurber, 12 Benton road, Medford.
- Representing the employes—Mrs Grace M. Brown, 81 Clark st, Maiden; Miss Margaret Fitzgerald, 5 Howard pl, Dorchester; J. N. Lally, 273 Cabot st, Boston; Miss Julia S. O'Connor, 9 Taylor st, Medford; Mrs Angela O'Hearn, 311 Saratoga st, East Boston, and Joseph O'Keefe, 9 Shawmut st, Worcester.
Who Was Daniel Joseph Lyne?
The last job Kerry held has never been reported elsewhere, appearing only in State Department files. When Fred and Ida Kerry applied for passports in July 1921, Daniel J. Lyne, then a young attorney who handled business bankruptcies and reorganizations in Boston, signed an affidavit swearing, as President of the New England Mercantile Company in Boston, he had requested that Kerry travel to various countries in Europe on behalf of that business. Lyne, less than ten years out of Harvard Law, was a junior associate in a law firm headed by Col. Edward L. Logan set up in August 1919:
Intriguingly, in 1930 a son born to Daniel Lyne and his wife would be named Kerry Richard Lyne. It could, however, be only a coincidence, since Daniel's father, Eugene Lyne, had been born in County Kerry, Ireland. Another fascinating coincidence is that one of Lyne's associate attorneys, Stewart C. Woodworth, lived in the same set of townhouses, only a few doors from where the Kerry family lived after selling their Downing Road home. This neighbor was married to Coline Ingersoll, daughter of Colin Mcrae Ingersoll, Jr. from an old New Haven family. Coline's brother was Ralph McAllister Ingersoll, about whom it was said in RALPH INGERSOLL A Biography, by Roy Hoopes:
He was a product of Hotchkiss school and Yale University. His great-uncle Ward McAllister coined the phrase ''the 400'' to quantify the social elite that could fit into Mrs. John Jacob Astor's ballroom. He spent most of the first five years of The New Yorker's life at the right hand of Harold Ross, its founding editor, where he worked on the Talk of the Town department and helped to set the magazine on its successful course. He took over as top editor of Fortune during its infancy and made the romance of big business so appealing that his boss and friend Henry R. Luce promoted him to general manager of Time Inc. and publisher of Time. A steamrolling power player, hiring and firing profligately, treating managing editors like office boys, he made so many enemies, including Clare Boothe Luce and ultimately Luce himself, that Time Inc.'s official history gives him little credit of any kind; but Ingersoll also became the prime mover in the launching of Life.After graduating from Hotchkiss prepatory school, we are told, Ralph entered the "Sheffield Scientific School at Yale majoring in science and engineering. Graduating in 1921, Ingersoll headed west to work at various mining companies in California and Arizona and in Mexico," before becoming a journalist. That was the same year that Fred Kerry's death was reported a few months after Richard and Ida Kerry had received passports for themselves and children Richard Kerry and Mildred on behalf of the New England Mercantile, whose president was Daniel Lyne, law partner of Coline's husband, Stewart, who lived at 503 Boylston, only a few doors away.
They were prepared to visit Switzerland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, and Austria, and departed in September 1921. Records indicate Ida and the children returned from Europe, embarking from Southampton, England on October 5, 1921, only six weeks before Fred Kerry allegedly committed suicide in a Boston hotel. Fred's name did not appear on the same passenger manifest, however, and there is, in fact, no indication he returned at all, unless under another name. Did he, in fact, die in that Boston hotel room or was it simply a ruse to cover for his failure to return from Europe?
Mildred would graduate from the Runkle School in Brookline at the end of the spring term in 1922, only a few months after her father's death. In July that year Ida Kerry sailed again with Mildred and young Richard to Vienna ostensibly to have a medical procedure performed. While she recuperated, Mildred contracted infantile paralysis, otherwise known as polio.
It should be noted that during the nine months they had been away, her affairs were being handled by none other than Daniel J. Lyne's law firm. Despite stories that have later surfaced saying Fred Kerry had left his family nothing, all indications are totally opposite. Mildred was being treated, according to Ida's passport extension application (below) by one of Vienna's most eminent pediatricians, Prof. Dr. Knopfelmacher.
Dr. Wilhelm KNOPFELMACHER, born 25 Aug 1866 in Boskovice, Moravia; died 14 Apr 1938 in Vienna, Austria. Notes for Dr. Wilhelm KNOPFELMACHER:
Dr. Wilhelm Knopfelmacher graduated from medical school in Vienna in 1891. While still a student, he became a lecturer in pediatrics to his fellow students. Later in 1891, he joined the medical staff of the Karolinen-Children's Hospital in Vienna. In 1901, he became "executive and head physician" of the entire hospital. He remained in that position until his retirement on 1 October 1934. In 1911, Dr. Wilhelm Knopfelmacher was bestowed the title of "Extraordinary Professor in Pediatrics" at the University of Vienna. In August 1936, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, the following tribute was written about him:
"A number of friends, pupils, former assistants, and doctors who have worked at the Karolinen-Children's Hospital, hereby wish to present you with this Festschrift, which is dedicated to you, in order to express our feelings of gratitude and sincere esteem. We would like to use this occasion of your 70th birthday to express our heart-felt wishes for your well-being. We realize that formal speeches would not have met with your approval; but you, esteemed professor, whose life's work was research into diseases of children and whose whole endeavour was the healing of children's illnesses, will readily accept a collection of contributions from gains in pediatrics; from leaders of many children's hospitals in Europe; from your friends in America; and contributions from paediatricians who, over the many years of your work at the Karolinen- Children's Hospital, were fortunate enough to work with and under you. We have joined together to show you by means of this Festschrift that we think of you in gratitude and love on your birthday."
[Spoken by Dr. H. Lehndorff]
Despite the accolades of 1936, the Nazis "dismissed" Dr. Wilhelm Knopfelmacher from any association with the Karolinen-Children's Hospital in 1938. Devastated by the thought of being barred from entering his beloved hospital, Dr. Knopfelmacher committed suicide by morphine a few days later (14 April 1938). He was 71 years old at the time of his death.
The eldest son, Eric, had not made the trip as he was then at Yale. Upon graduation he would marry and move to Manhattan to engage in the oil business. Mildred survived the illness and returned from Bremen to their Brookline townhouse with Ida and Richard in June 1924. Ida would make a voyage almost every year thereafter between 1926 and 1931, taking Richard in 1930, Mildred in 1931, and both in 1938. By 1935, if not earlier, both Ida and Mildred lived in Sarasota, Florida at Bay Island, but no census record for 1930 can be found for either of them.
What was really going on?
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