William Patrick Kennedy was born in Wallingford, CT, on 15 December, 1870, the 5th of eight children born to James O. Kennedy and Mary Shannon (sometimes spelled SHANAHAN). It is not known what brought William to Long Island, NY, where he found employment as a horse trainer for Richard Carman of Huntington. On March 2, 1900 he married Mary Margaret Landrigan, whose family had moved to Long Island from Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the late 1880s.
William's occupation led to a journeyman's existence...California...Delaware...Ohio. In Bryn Mawr, PA, he ran a successful riding academy until badly injured when attacked robbed by a client. He was probably never quite the same afterwards and gave up what had been a prosperous business. He later worked for the Vanderbilts at Oakland Farm in Newport, RI.
Finally, Mary put her foot down. She was tired of moving her family from place to place. She returned to Long Island and settled in with her brother in Northport, NY. From this time until William death in 1935 from meningitis, his family saw little of him (on the 1930 Federal Census Mary listed herself as a widow). The wedding announcement of his daughter, Alde, in a local paper did not even mention him as being her father.
William P. Kennedy died on 27 Jan 1935 from spinal meningits at Bellevue Hospital in NYC, where he was transported after policemen found him ill at Grand Central Station (according to his son). He was buried with his in-laws in the Landrigan plot at St. Patrick's RC Church cemetery in Huntington, NY
The children of William and Mary (Landrigan) Kennedy were:
Kennedys in the local news.
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