Did You Know John F. Kennedy Left Doodles in the Archives?

John F. Kennedy is remembered through speeches, photographs, legislation, campaign journeys, and the enormous official record of a presidency. But the archive also preserves something much smaller and less formal: his doodles.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library says that Kennedy produced so many of them that they occupy an entire series in his personal papers—more than one hundred folders. The drawings and notes include boxes, arrows, sailboats, and single words or phrases repeated several times. They are not a secret codebook, and the archivists do not claim that every mark has a known explanation. Their value is quieter. They show a familiar human habit surviving beside the official documents.

One example is especially irresistible. On April 5, 1962, during a cabinet meeting, Kennedy wrote the word “cheese” twice on a sheet of paper. The meeting’s agenda included foreign policy, unemployment, emergency planning, and the budget. Some other words on the page—such as “Austria” and “commission”—can be connected to those subjects. But the archivist who wrote about the document says we may never know what prompted the word “cheese.”

That uncertainty is part of the story, not a defect in it.

A president’s ordinary marks

The word “doodle” can make a document sound frivolous. In an archive, however, an ordinary mark can become evidence of a moment’s physical and social setting. It tells us that a person was holding a pen, had a sheet of paper in front of them, and left something behind while official business was underway. It may show a repeated interest, a private reminder, an idle pattern, or simply a thought that disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

The responsible conclusion is limited: Kennedy doodled, and the archive contains many examples. We cannot safely turn every box, arrow, sailboat, or repeated word into a psychological diagnosis. We cannot know from the “cheese” note alone whether Kennedy was hungry, amused, distracted, responding to a comment, or making a private reference. The document preserves the trace of an action more securely than it preserves the reason for the action.

That distinction matters whenever we tell stories from family papers. A photograph may prove that someone stood beside a car; it may not prove where the family was going or what everyone felt. A recipe card may carry a familiar handwriting; it may not tell us who taught the recipe. A margin note may be funny and revealing; it may still have an unknown context.

The strongest family histories keep both parts: what the item shows and what the family is still trying to understand.

What the archive can and cannot tell us

The Kennedy Library’s archival account is unusually helpful because it resists the temptation to solve the mystery. It identifies the document, dates it, places it within a cabinet meeting, and compares the note with the meeting agenda. Then it stops where the evidence stops.

That is good historical practice. It also offers a useful model for preserving personal memories.

When you find an old note in a drawer, begin with an inventory rather than a conclusion. Record the writer, approximate date, paper, handwriting, location, and any names or words that can be identified. If a calendar, letter, photograph, or meeting notice helps establish the setting, keep that connection with the item. Then make a separate note for possibilities: what the writer may have meant, what another relative remembers, and what remains unknown.

This approach protects the object from becoming a family legend too quickly. “Granddad wrote this while waiting for the train” is different from “We found this in Granddad’s coat pocket, and he often travelled by train.” The first may be true, but the second tells the future reader exactly what is documented and what is still an interpretation.

For a practical way to add context for someone who may read a memory years from now, see how to write the note your future reader will need. The same habit that helps explain a major life event can also explain a tiny scrap of paper.

The personality in the margins

It is tempting to say that doodles reveal the “real” Kennedy behind the public figure. That goes too far. A doodle is not a complete portrait, and a historical person is not reducible to a handful of marks. Still, small records can complicate a polished public image.

Official documents tend to preserve what a person was expected to say or do. Personal papers may preserve what happened around the edges: the hand that kept moving, the note written during a pause, the repeated shape, the half-finished thought. These details do not replace speeches or decisions. They give us another scale at which to see a life.

The “cheese” page is memorable precisely because it refuses to become a grand revelation. It is a small mystery inside a serious meeting. The page does not tell us that Kennedy loved cheese, that he disliked the meeting, or that he was sending a coded message. It tells us that a word appeared twice, and that an archivist noticed it because the reason may never be recoverable.

There is gentle humour in that limit. Even a president can leave behind a note that future researchers cannot explain.

A family exercise: preserve the unexplained scrap

Try this with one small item from your own family archive: a shopping list, envelope, recipe margin, ticket stub, school note, calendar square, or handwritten reminder.

First, describe it without interpretation. What is it made of? Whose handwriting is it? What words, dates, names, or marks are visible? Is anything crossed out? Was it folded, pinned, stained, or kept with other papers?

Next, write the strongest context you can support. Perhaps the date matches a family photograph. Perhaps the handwriting resembles letters from the same year. Perhaps a relative remembers the event. Save those connections, but label them as recollection or comparison rather than certainty.

Finally, write down the unanswered question. Who was the note for? Why was the word repeated? What happened next? Do not treat the unknown as a failure. An honest question can be an invitation for another family member to contribute a memory.

If you record someone else’s explanation, ask permission and preserve their wording carefully. A later family member may disagree, remember another version, or recognize a name that was mysterious to you. The purpose is not to force every object into a neat story. It is to keep the object, its context, and its uncertainty together.

The value of a small trace

John F. Kennedy’s doodles survived because they remained with his personal papers. The archive can now show a recurring habit and one particularly puzzling word without inventing an answer. That is a useful lesson for anyone preserving a life story: the smallest traces may carry personality, but only when we keep their limits visible.

Your own archive may contain no presidential papers and no famous signature. It may contain a note written during a busy afternoon, a shape drawn while someone talked on the telephone, or a word that made perfect sense to one person and no sense to anyone else later. Keep it. Add the date, place, people, and questions you can honestly supply.

Your story matters to us—not because every detail must become dramatic, but because ordinary details are often what make a person recognizable across generations.

Sources and further reading

• “Unexpected Gems from the Archives,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
• John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum