Among the 1.5 million condolence letters sent to President John F. Kennedy's widow after his assassination in 1963 were more than two dozen from Jane Dryden, a dogged and dramatic 11-year-old who churned out a letter a week for six months straight. “I know that you hate the whole state of Texas. I do to,” she wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy from Austin in January 1964. Given the overwhelming volume of mail - 800,000 letters in the first seven weeks alone - most of the condolence letters were destroyed. But at least one of Dryden's notes ended up among the 200,000 pages that were sent to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where they sat largely ignored until historian Ellen Fitzpatrick decided to write “Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation.” The book, released last week by HarperCollins, includes more than 200 never-before published letters divided into three categories: vivid recollections of the day Kennedy was killed; letters that express views on society, politics and the presidency; and personal experiences of grief and loss. One of the shortest letters came from Martin Rosenberg, a student at the University of Massachusetts who wrote: “Dear Mrs. Kennedy: I have never seen our football players cry ... but today, they did.”
