Kathy Buckley was born in Listowel in 1885 and died there in 1979, but had an exciting life far away in America. Local historian, Vincent Carmody, author of three books about the North Kerry area, documents that in "Kathy White House: Her Culinary Odyssey from William Street to the White House," which will be launched in the American Irish Historical Society on 5th Avenue at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6.
Buckley was the Head Cook in the White House from 1924 to 1933, serving under two presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. After her years in the White House she continued her work in “big houses” in Rhode Island until she returned in 1953 to spend her retirement years in Listowel.
American culinary historian Laura Shapiro writes in her foreword that the notes the Kerrywoman left behind "tell us she was endlessly curious, endlessly adventurous, endlessly eager to improve what she put on the table.”
