The collection contains items saved by the Dr. Robert W. Kelley family concerning long-time friend, cartoonist Daniel R. Fitzpatrick. The family saved cards and letters sent to them by Fitzpatrick, a pencil sketch, a photograph, newspaper clippings, and the eulogy delivered at his funeral. The collection is arranged chronologically and dates from 1955 to 1989; the bulk of the collection dates from 1965 to 1969. Gaps exist from 1956 to1958, 1960, 1964, and from 1970 to 1988.

Helen Kelley composed a personal recollection about Daniel Fitzpatrick (Fitz) and his first wife Lee, in which she explained the Kelleys' relationship with the Fitzpatricks (f.8). She remembered when Fitz presented an original cartoon, Miss Barium Enema 1955, and a fictional letter explaining how he obtained the piece from Juan Perone’s personal art collection to Dr. Kelley. Helen observed that after Lee’s death in 1965, “Fitz was frantic with loneliness.” His behavior changed and by 1967, Dr. Kelley consulted with a neuropsychiatrist who recommended hospitalization. There is a letter dated January 24, 1967, from an attorney who worked with Dr. Kelley on an order of involuntary hospitalization which eventually sent Fitz to St. Vincent’s Hospital for an unspecified amount of time.

Fitz wrote notes, postcards, and humorous letters to all members of the Kelley family and several of those are represented here from 1961 to 1969. In several letters, Fitz added small illustrations on the pages. On one visit to the Kelley family in 1963, Barbara was ill and Fitz sketched her lying on the sofa in a pencil drawing he titled, Special Patient Ward #1 (f.1). The only photograph in the collection depicts Fitz sitting in a hospital bed with a pen in hand. A label on the photo explains that it was taken by “Rusty” Casteel and the photo was attached to an ink drawing by Fitz dated August 20, 1962 at Barnes Hospital (f.1).

After his hospital release in 1967, Fitz wanted to travel to Mexico. There are letters written by Fitz while he was in Mexico in December 1967 and January 1968. He produced many watercolors while there, his way of recording his vacation. On March 10, 1968, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a selection of these vacation drawings in its PICTURE section. Other newsclippings relate to Fitz’s retirement from the Post-Dispatch, commemorations after his death, his obituary, and a notice for a showing of his cartoons in 1989.