Never-seen photos from JFK's nanny up for auction

WASHINGTON - In November 1963, Maud Shaw was given an impossible task.

She was nanny to John F. Kennedy's children and, moments after the president was killed, Jackie's mother asked Shaw to break the news to his kids.

"Please, no," she begged. "I can't take a child's last happiness." But Jackie's mother insisted, believing the burden would be too much for Jackie to bear.

So with Caroline not yet 6 years old and John Jr. not yet 2, Shaw reached for a way to say it, The Washington Post's Michael Powell reported in 1999.

"Your father has gone to look after Patrick," Shaw said about the baby the Kennedys lost the previous summer. "Patrick was so lonely in heaven. He didn't know anybody there. Now he has the best friend anybody could have."

"Did Daddy take his big plane with him?" John Jr. said.

Yes, Shaw told him.

"I wonder when he's coming back," John pondered.

Some of Shaw's mementos from her time in the White House are currently up for auction online in a bidding process that ends Thursday.

Shaw was the Kennedys' nanny for seven years until she retired in 1965. The next year, she published a memoir, "White House Nanny: My Years with Caroline and John Kennedy, Jr." She wrote, among other things, about how she was given the first lady's maternity dress - a white sleeveless sun dress.

The collection of mementos includes a signed copy of the memoir and the maternity dress, as well as and 79 candid photographs of the first lady and her two children during Shaw's time with them, showing moments they shared at the beach, pony rides and walks in the park with the family dog.