“History Jumping Up Out of History Books”
John F. Kennedy greeting
crowds outside his hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, on the morning of
November 22, 1963
Fort Worth Rally, November 22, 1963, photograph by Cecil Stoughton,
John. F. Kennedy Library.
November 22, 1963, began as any other day in the life of most Americans. Adults went off to work, children to school, the majority inattentive to or completely unaware of the Presidential trip to Dallas. Weddings were being planned, birthday cakes baked, laundry sorted, the weekend and upcoming Thanksgiving holiday anticipated. In hospitals around the country, babies were born, the sick and dying attended to. For some Texans, of course, the day had a different aspect, with thousands planning to catch a glimpse of the President. The Kennedys’ visit to Texas was designed to launch the ’64 Presidential campaign and smooth over divisions among warring conservative and liberal factions in the state Democratic Party. Kennedy barely carried Texas in the 1960 election, despite Lyndon Johnson’s presence on the ticket. He believed his civil rights stance as President might further erode the already wavering loyalties of conservative Southern Democrats. The prospect of a contest with Republican Barry Goldwater made it seem even more essential to shore up declining support in Texas.
The trip began auspiciously. Warm and friendly crowds met the Kennedys upon their arrival on November 21 in San Antonio and later that day in Houston. They stopped to shake hands with crowds at each city’s airport, rode in open motorcades through streets lined with well-wishers, and made their way through a busy schedule of events. At every point along the way, eager individuals sought to detain them for a moment. A woman who waited four hours in the lobby of the Rice Hotel later wrote to Mrs. Kennedy, “when you came in President Kennedy shook hands with me.” “I’m Mrs. McCockey,” she recalled saying. “He looked at me and formed my name with his lips & bowed to me…Then I shook hands with you, you probably don’t remember but I said Mrs. Kennedy I’m Mrs. McCockey, and you said, how are you Mrs. McCockey.” Although the Kennedys arrived at Fort Worth late Thursday night, even then crowds gathered at the airport, along the motorcade route, and at the Hotel Texas where they stayed overnight.
Friday’s schedule included a breakfast hosted by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce before the short plane ride to Dallas. President Kennedy emerged from his hotel at 8:45 a.m., excited and energized by the thousands who had gathered outside in a parking lot. He apologized for Mrs. Kennedy’s absence, noting that she was “organizing herself. It takes her a little longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it.” After offering brief remarks, he waded into the crowd to shake hands and then returned to the Hotel Texas, where he spoke at the breakfast. Some 2,000 people jammed the ballroom and listened as Kennedy extolled Fort Worth’s contribution to maintaining national security through its role in military defense construction. Attendees were rewarded with the appearance of Jacqueline Kennedy, beautifully dressed in a pink wool suit and matching pillbox hat. And then they were off for the short plane ride to Love Field in Dallas.
The Dallas leg of Kennedy’s trip inspired some anxiety among the President’s advisers. Less than a month before, right-wing demonstrators in Dallas had roughed up Adlai Stevenson, disrupting his speech celebrating United Nations Day with boos and jeers and subjecting the UN ambassador to physical violence (as Stevenson left the Memorial Auditorium, two men spat in his face and a woman smacked his head with a picket sign). Leaflets circulating in Dallas the day before Kennedy’s visit depicted him as a criminal wanted for treason. Disseminating familiar criticism leveled by the John Birch Society, the handbill accused Kennedy of “turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations,” offering “support and encouragement to the Communist inspired racial riots” and “consistently” appointing “Anti-Christians to Federal office: Upholds the Supreme Court in its Anti-Christian rulings.” It included an old smear alleging Kennedy had a previous marriage and divorce and was lying to the public about it.
On Friday a full-page, black-bordered ad in the Dallas Morning News echoed the condemnation. Under a bold face headline reading welcome to dallas the broadside accused the President of ignoring the Constitution and promoting aid and comfort to the nation’s Communist enemies. After being shown the ad on the morning of November 22, Kennedy turned to his wife and commented, “We’re heading into nut country today.” He went on to reflect, “last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a President…. There was the rain, and the night, and we were all getting jostled. Suppose a man had a pistol in a briefcase.” He demonstrated how easy it would have been for an assassin to have fired, “dropped the gun and the briefcase and melted away in the crowd.”
Such worries seemed to evaporate as quickly as Fort Worth’s early morning clouds and rainy mist. The flight to Dallas from Fort Worth’s Carswell Air Force Base lasted just thirteen minutes. By the time the Presidential party arrived at Love Field, brilliant sunshine and temperatures rising into the 80s promised a spectacular day. A Dallas elementary schoolteacher recalled looking up at the sky with her students for the President’s plane. “I told the children how wonderful it was that the clouds had lifted, the sun had come out, and you and your husband would have a lovely day after all,” she later wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy. “We all thrilled at being so near you—eleven miles—but I felt nearer, for we saw your plane circle in a wide swing before it landed.”
Shortly after Air Force One touched down at 11:38 (CST) in Dallas, the Kennedys, who were accompanied by Vice President Johnson and Lady Bird, as well as by Governor John Connally and his wife, disembarked and greeted various local officials selected as a reception committee. Mrs. Kennedy later recollected that she had been given yellow roses at every other stop in Texas, but in Dallas she received a huge bouquet of long stemmed red roses. A few hostile placards were visible at the airport, including one that read YANKEE GO HOME AND TAKE YOUR EQUALS WITH YOU, and another with the blunt, if misspelled message, your A TRAITER. But the overall celebratory mood seemed infectious. A high school student observed that “even though Dallas was mainly a Republican city,” the crowds at Love Field were “happy and excited.” Within minutes of their arrival, the President and Mrs. Kennedy made their way to the fence line, moving along shaking hands with boisterous and enthusiastic spectators—momentary encounters that would soon be engraved forever in the memories of those they met.
The motorcade left Love Field just before noon. Vantage points for seeing the President were not hard to determine; several Dallas newspapers outlined the motorcade’s route prior to the President’s visit, and on November 22 the Dallas Morning News noted that the motorcade would move slowly so that crowds could “get a good view of President Kennedy and his wife.” At the first turn out of the airport, a small group of office workers caught sight of the President. “Just as your car turned from the Love Field entrance onto Mockingbird Lane,” one man remembered in a subsequent note to the former First Lady, “Mr. Kennedy was trying to wave to everyone. One girl in our group yelled out ‘Welcome to Dallas, Mr. President,’ and the President heard her and waved at her. I remarked on the way back to work over and over again that he, Mr. Kennedy, looked beautiful. I know a man isn’t usually referred to in this way but this word best described him that day.” To this observer, Mrs. Kennedy seemed distant. “You looked as lovely as I had imagined you would,” he noted, “but just as you passed by us you seemed to be deep in thought and I felt sorry for you as you seemed to be a little weary. I imagined you were tired from the trip.”
The motorcade in Dallas,
November 22, 1963
Photograph of motorcade, November 22, 1963, courtesy of the Boston
Herald, John F. Kennedy Library.
The motorcade route from Love Field to the Trade Mart, the site of a lunch where the President would give a formal address, covered about ten miles. Once beyond the immediate environs of Love Field, the crowd thinned out for a few miles. Still, when Jacqueline Kennedy put on her sunglasses, the President asked her to take them off, noting that the public would want to see her face. At the President’s request, the limousine stopped twice—once in response to a gaggle of schoolchildren holding a sign that said MR. PRESIDENT, PLEASE STOP AND SHAKE OUR HANDS, then to greet some Catholic nuns.
As the motorcade approached downtown Dallas, the crowds swelled, excitement built, and cheers rang out in places where spectators stood as many as twelve deep on the sidewalks. Flags fluttered, office workers leaned out of windows in tall buildings, and some intrepid people stood on the awnings and roofs to get a better look. Dallas policemen struggled in places to hold back the surging crowd. As he waved, the President murmured, “Thank you, thank you” again and again. Traveling at a speed estimated between seven and eleven miles per hour, the President’s car allowed some spectators memorable impressions of the Kennedys. One Catholic nun reported to her parents, “We were so close to them that if I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched the car.” “He looked so darling and he had a real wide smile and his eyes were real bright,” she remembered. Mrs. Kennedy offered a “big smile and her graceful wave” and then the President himself “caught sight of us and turned toward us and waved and said ‘Oh the Sisters.’ Then it was over all too soon.” Down the twelve blocks of Main Street the latter sentiment arose again and again. The Kennedys were there for a moment—smiling, vibrant, alive—and “then they were gone.”
The rapidity with which events next unfolded remains one of the more stunning facets of the Kennedy assassination. The motorcade came under fire at 12:30 p.m., just after it had zigzagged from Main Street to Houston and then around the corner to Elm where the Texas Book Depository stood. The crowds thinned past the Depository. Jacqueline Kennedy waved and looked to her left, avoiding having to gaze directly into the sun. As the heat of the day beat down, she anticipated the relief that would come when they reached the cool underpass ahead. Many bystanders heard the crack of the rifle as the first shot rang out. Another followed in rapid succession. Mrs. Kennedy at first imagined the sound was a motorcycle backfiring until Governor Connally, sitting in the jumpseat ahead, cried out. She saw Connally grimacing and hitting his fist against his chest, and then turned toward her husband. He had a “quizzical” expression on his face, she recalled, as he raised his hand as if to smooth back a lock of his hair. She leaned toward him, now only six inches away, when another crack of the rifle pierced the air. The third shot delivered a lethal wound to the President’s head, showering Mrs. Kennedy, a motorcyclist nearby, and the limousine with gore. Kennedy slumped toward his wife, the backseat now “full of blood and red roses,” she would later recall. Two blossoms, lodged inside the President’s shirt, would be given back to her later that night when his body was returned to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington.
Spectators reacted immediately to the sound of gunfire, many running away from the street or throwing themselves to the ground. Several of those closest to the Presidential car turned toward the Book Depository when they heard gunfire. Among them was Bob Jackson, a photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, who was seated in an open car reserved for cameramen toward the rear of the motorcade. He looked up in time to see a rifle being pulled back from a sixth-floor window in the Depository. Tom Dillard of the Dallas Morning News, also in this convertible, quickly snapped a photograph of the sniper’s perch.
Before the Presidential limousine even reached Parkland Hospital, a distance of less than four miles that nonetheless felt like an “eternity” to Jacqueline Kennedy, news of the assassination attempt began to break. Merriman Smith, the White House Correspondent for UPI, was riding in the press pool car just in front of the photographers when he heard the gunfire. He grabbed the radiophone and called his Dallas bureau, shouting: “Three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas.” The bulletin came off the UPI teletype at 12:34, setting in motion a cascade of breaking news stories. At 12:36—just as the President’s car reached Parkland Hospital—ABC radio interrupted its programming to read the UPI flash. At 12:40 CBS broke into its popular soap opera As the World Turns with a special bulletin read by Walter Cronkite: “In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.” Updates by wire report, radio, and television rapidly tumbled in. By 1:00 p.m., when doctors at Parkland pronounced the President dead, it’s been estimated that nearly 70 percent of adults in the United States already knew of the assassination attempt. At 1:35 another UPI bulletin came across the wire: “President Kennedy dead.”
As these events unfolded, word of them reached Americans who were going about their day only to be stopped short. Their subsequent letters of sympathy to Mrs. Kennedy reveal how the drama of November 22 collided with the lives of individual Americans, both on the scene in Dallas and far removed from Texas. Some began their letters as they sat watching news of the assassination break on television. There are no letters from eyewitnesses in the condolence letters, but there are many from bystanders who saw the President and Mrs. Kennedy only minutes before the assassination. Others wrote weeks, months, and even a year later, but described with extraordinary clarity precisely what happened in their own lives on November 22. The first letters below are arranged chronologically, based not upon the date of their letter, but of the day’s events. They are followed by messages that depict the way the news reverberated around the country.
Photograph of envelope, Condolence Mail, John F. Kennedy Library.
VALLEY CENTER, CALIF.
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
Nothing has been confirmed as yet. Either way it turns out you have my deepest sympathy.
Don’t neglect the healing affect of quiet time alone with a quiet horse or dog.
Oh my dear, it has been pretty well confirmed that we have lost him. Our prayers are with you.
Love,
Nancy, Kenneth,
Rick, Brandon
& Perry Glimpse
UPPER DARBY,
PA.
11/22/63
2:00 P.M.
My dear Mrs. Kennedy.
Even as I write this letter, my hand, my body is trembling at the terrible incident of this afternoon. I am watching the CBS-TV news report. No official word as yet. I’m not of voting age yet but I am old enough to understand the political and diplomatic relations of the world. When the President was campaigning, If I had been old enough, I would have voted in his favor. I knew that then and I know that now. Not because of his youth, his religion, his personality. But because of some indistinguishable influence, perhaps more defined now after a few years, almost a full term, after his election.
I’m writing, I know, but what I want to say, I can’t put into words. Perhaps you can read between the lines. Not just “I’m sorry to hear….” but more.
Good God! Help us! Help us! Three assassinations are now history and I never thought I’d live to see one, even a thwarted attempt which was close but not, Saints help us SUCCESSFUL. It is a terrible thing to live through.
I can’t go on writing now. It’s too much. My prayers are with you and those involved.
DALLAS TEXAS
DEC. 1-1963
Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy
First Lady in our hearts.
I live in Dallas, a city bowed in sorrow, and shame. I am 76 years old and live on a social security check
I must pour out my heart to you if my feeble hands will hold out to scribble a few lines.
I was at Lovefield, when you and John steped from the plane. I was the first man to shake his hand, (from behind the fence barricade). That was my life’s fullest moment.
And you! The camera’s were on you, most of that dark day. Heaven must have fortufied you for those hours. No Pen or brush nor gifted tongue could have accurately portrayed your stature in lonliness. Humility, bravery, fortitude, beauty, strength, faithfulness, loyalty, loveliness, and grandure, Rolled into one Sweet Mrs. Amerec of the Ages.
Very Sincerely,
J.E.Y. Russell
GRAPEVINE,
TEXAS
MAY 28, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
The following letter is a copy of a letter that I wrote to a parish priest (Episcopal) who moved away from this area some time ago.
I thought perhaps you would know by this letter that there are those who will never forget your husband and who will always miss him. Even now, six months afterward, unexpected tears spring to my eyes every time I see a film of him on television. Even now it is so hard to believe. I whisper to myself, “Surely this can’t be so!”
Your beautiful picture on the cover of Life and your article prompted me to write to you. I hope I have given you some comfort.
November 27, 1963
Dear Father,
May I share a few thoughts with you about the tragedy? Nothing has touched me so deeply in a long time. I had seen President Kennedy just three or four minutes before he was shot. I had planned all week to go to the parade in downtown Dallas, but the morning dawned foggy, misty and ugly. Billy insisted that I stay home and watch the motorcade on television. But by 9:30 a.m. I couldn’t sit still any longer. I put on my oldest raincoat and overshoes and dashed to Dallas. I parked way down on Pacific, and was the last car that that lot could take. Excitement was in the air, and I was glad to be alone so I could soak it up without the necessity of polite conversation with anyone. I walked slowly, trying to kill the long wait…. Finally I decided to go to Neiman’s Zodiac Room for a snack, but they were having a private brunch until noon, so I sadly turned away. As I did so, I saw the Beauty Salon, and right there decided to get my hair cut. I was happily surprised that they could take me. I told them that I couldn’t wait, because I wanted to see the President.
When I came out of Neiman’s with my new haircut at 11:10, crowds were already forming. It was quite heartening, because I had worried so about his reception in Dallas. I hurried down to Daddy’s old office building, the former Republic Bank Building, now the Davis Building. Jacqueline Kennedy is not the only one with outstanding sentiment—I wanted to see the President right in front of the doorway that my father used thousands of times, and I wanted to try to imagine and feel the elation that he would have felt about seeing his favorite of all presidents. To Daddy, President Kennedy was too good to be true—he worried constantly about an untimely death for him. I remember his astounding statement at the time of the 1960 Democratic Convention, when Johnson accepted the vice-presidency and so many of Johnson’s fans were sick—Daddy said, “Kennedy will be elected, then assassinated, and Johnson will be president, after all.” I thought of this during the long wait. I looked up at the windows of the tall buildings and thought about the utter futility of trying to protect him. The thought crossed my mind that a bomb tossed from one of those windows could kill a bunch of us, too, but even that did not induce me to move from my perfect spot. The crowd grew and grew. Soon rooftops and awnings were crowded. Right across the street an enormous sign was put up. It said, “We’ll trade U one retired general for some NASA artwork. Signed 250 Dallas artists.” Police cars made constant patrols, looking, watching. A police truck hauled off a car that was left on Main Street. I wondered what the owner of the car would think when he returned and couldn’t find his car. The crowd was very jovial and those of us who shared the long foot-tiring wait became like neighbors.
A couple of incidents brought real laughter from both sides of the street. One was a powder blue car with bright writings all over it. It would go past us, catching all eyes, then pretty soon it would come back. We began to clap on about the third pass, and on the last we cheered—the writing on the car said, “Shop at Honest John’s Pawn Shop,” and the shrewd owner was taking advantage of the great crowd. The other incident had to do with two high school boys in a convertible—one was driving and the other sat in the back seat smiling and waving with an expression on his face like a great leader. The amiable crowd rewarded the boy with light applause and good humor. I heard only one ugly remark about President Kennedy—a squat sour-looking old man came out of Daddy’s doorway, pushed his way to the curb, looked at the size of the crowd, and said, “All you people here to see that guy?” Of course, no one answered him and he hurried back inside. A young girl next to me had a transistor radio, and we were able to hear on-the-spot reporting about his wonderful welcome at Love Field, about his friendly handshaking, Jackie’s beauty and everything—the excitement was mounting. Finally, the police turned away all traffic, and Main Street was empty at noon. The police cautioned us to stay on the curb, but we couldn’t resist dashing out into the quiet street for a long look to see if the motorcade was approaching. At last it came into view, and that first sight of it filled me with such incredible excitement that I don’t believe I can describe it—indeed, even to write of it starts my heart pounding. The first thing I was able to see at several blocks distance were the red lights of the motorcycle police escort—about eight flashing red lights preceding the dark limosine. They were travelling faster than I had expected. The police were yelling to stay back, but from both sides of the street we surged out. I almost got my toe run over by one of the motorcycles. Long as I live I will never forget Kennedy—tanned (that was the first thing that I noticed) smiling, handsome, happy. I didn’t get to see Jackie’s face, because she was waving to her side of the street, but her youthful image was unmistakably beautiful. Her long mahogany-colored hair was blowing in the wind, and the sun, which had come out brilliantly, caught the red highlights. I’ll always remember the way it shone so brightly on the President. Then they were gone.
I was shaking so, as I made my way back to the parking lot, that I decided I’d better stop on the way home and eat a bite of lunch. I got into my little Opel and turned on the radio. The first thing I heard was, “The President has been shot,” and I just thought that the announcer had meant to say that the President has been shocked at the size and friendliness of the crowd. All too soon the terrible truth sank in and I don’t know how I got home. I couldn’t go into my house alone, so I went to the neighbors. They were white-faced and weeping. Their television was on and the announcer had just said that our good, wonderful, youthful President was dead. One of my neighbors had attended the breakfast in Fort Worth that morning—
Needless to say, I never did eat lunch or supper. I never made up a bed, got together a meal, nor paid a bill until after the funeral. I even almost forgot that my beloved Mother had died on November 24th, and was buried on Billy’s birthday, November 26th. Today is my own birthday and it means nothing. I am sick, sick, and violently angry.
Pray for us all, please.
Janice
P.S. Would you mind sending this back to me? I would like to keep this written account for my sons, Billy and Jim.
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I know the grief you bear. I bear that same grief. I am a Dallasite. I saw you yesterday. I hope to see you again. I saw Mr. Kennedy yesterday. I’ll never see him again. I’m very disturbed because I saw him a mere 2 minutes before that fatal shot was fired. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it over the radio 5 minutes later. I felt like I was in a daze. To Dallas, time has halted. Everyone is shocked and disturbed. My prayers to you.
A Sympathetic, Prayerful, and Disturbed
DALLASITE,
Tommy Smith
Age: 14
Some bystanders waiting to catch a glimpse of President Kennedy instead saw the motorcade as it sped toward Parkland Hospital. One woman who later wrote to Mrs. Kennedy received a call from her brother who witnessed the arrival of the presidential limousine at the hospital. “Calls for stretchers rang out—and you know too clearly the rest,” she noted. “John, my brother, helped take your John, by stretcher to the Emergency Room…. I saw my brother around 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. He was visibly shaken.” A nursing home administrator who happened to be at Parkland that day with a patient recalled, “I saw your beloved husband when they brought him in on the stretcher to the emergency room…. I am sorry I was unfortunate to have to see your wonderful husband on his day of death.” Others waited for the motorcade to arrive at the Trade Mart.
DALLAS, TEXAS
Dear Mrs Kennedy,
I would like too express my sympathy in losing your most wonderful husband
Mrs. Kennedy I was one of the ladies choosen from my Church St. Pius X to serve the dinner at the Trade Mart.
I was so proud and thrill too know I would get to see you and your beloved husband and all the party with you all.
I couldn’t hardly sleep or eat knowing that we ladies were going to serve.
We ladies had everything prepare and just waiting for you all too come too the Trade Mart. My heart just fell when we heard the sad news and I felt like it was one of my family. I wish I could do something more for you and your children. But the only thing I can offer is too pray to God for you and your children.
I will never forget you and Mr. Kennedy. I pray for his soul every night and ask God too take good care of you and your children. May God Alway Bless You.
JANUARY 6, 1964
DENTON, TEXAS
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
Regardless of my knowledge that you will probably never see this letter, I am writing to express my deepest sorrow over the death of your husband.
Having grown up in a strongly Republican family, I was most disheartened after the 1960 election. I was not a Kennedy supporter; in fact, I was bitterly disappointed when he won. It has been only in the past few months that I had come to a realization of your husband’s greatness and value to us all. On the eve of your Texas visit, I finally reached the conclusion that President Kennedy was a great president and that I would vote for him in the 1964 election.
I tell you this boring history that you may know that my overwhelming and lingering sorrow at his death came not from an emotional attachment to an extremely popular man and name, but as the result of serious consideration in light of his proven ability.
My anguish at his death was probably heightened by the fact that on the morning of Nov. 22, I waited in front of the Trade Mart in Dallas to catch a glimpse of you and the President. To this hour I can still feel the same horror and grief I felt then when I understood the delay in reaching the place where I stood.
As a student of history, I know the memory of the American public to be short. In the coming months many people will forget the horror of that black Friday and the exhilaration of your husband’s administration. But I will not forget. And I join with you in the belief that “there was once a spot; for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot.”
Most sincerely,
Carol Oakey
DEC-17-1963
TEAGUE, TEXAS
Dear Mrs. Kennedy, Carolyn and John John,
I am a person of poor education as you will see, but I wrote President Kennedy a letter of gratitude for all the many things he had done for us the American people and as I was sending out greetings to friends and loved ones, I felt impressed to write our Dear President, so in my feeble way I sent a greetings to him and you his wonderful family last year. And I received a letter of thanks from his secetary to my happy surprise.
I am still stuned and grieved over the horrable death he met so suddenly on Nov–22–1963 in Dallas Texas. I had watched on T V your visit to Sanantone, Houston, Ft worth and Dallas, which is 100 miles to the north of us. I was watching the parade and thinking how Happy you and our President were over the warm welcome from the people of Dallas, when at a split second we noticed that the presidents car also the Vice presidents car, had turned and left the parade, of course we were very upset, then the news flash just in seconds gave us the sad news that our Dear President had been shot.
My daughter and I were having lunch celebrating her birthday the 22nd we stoped and folding our hands in prayer we ask the Good Lord, if it was his will to be with our president to heal, and spare his life, but in just a short time there was another news flash, that our wonderful President had died from the cruel snippers bullet. And I want to commend you Dear mrs Kennedy for your great courage at that time. And altho I’m sure your life and the lives of your darling children can never be the same, I believe in God and I will continue to pray for the presence of the Lord to ever be near you and that his holy angles will watch over you and your children and that you will have the peace of God in your heat that passeth all understanding during this Xmas season and on through life.
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
JANUARY 17, 1964
Dear Mrs Kennedy,
May I extend my heartfelt sympathy and prayers to you and your family? I do so admire your courage and strength. It has been an inspiration to me the way you have conducted yourself. You see Mrs Kennedy, my husband died of a heart attack while sitting at the table drinking a glass of milk on Friday, November 22, at about the same time your husband and our beloved President was killed. We were listening to the news about your husband when my husband had his attack. His last words were “how could anyone have such hate in his heart that he could do such a thing to our President.” My sixteen year old son came in at that time from school and was with me when he died. He died not knowing for sure the President was dead. My husband was 46 years old also—born in April, 1917. We have five Children—four boys and one girl. Our oldest boy is 22 years old and doing graduate work at Brown University in Prov. R.I. My youngest is nine years old and in the 4th grade. My husband was a retired Army Major.
I feel so for your young children. Mine are older and will remember their father real well.
My prayers will be with you and your family in the difficult days ahead. I can truly sympathize with you as I am going through the same adjustment—that of adjusting your life without the man you love by your side.
Sincerely, Margaret McLean
Millions of American children learned about the Kennedy assassination in school. As they sat in their classrooms on Friday afternoon, word of the shooting in Dallas began to reach school officials and teachers. Many of the latter confronted the unenviable task of breaking the news to their pupils. These educators described the anguish that task imposed as they struggled to maintain their own composure. The young children they taught looked up at them with open faces searching for guidance. Often unsure how to respond, teachers improvised assignments and activities they hoped would reassure and occupy their stunned pupils. Few of those children, however, missed the impact of the assassination on their mentors. In their letters to Mrs. Kennedy, they wrote with simple eloquence about how upset their teachers were and how difficult it was to make sense of the news, however it was delivered. They also often commented on the distraught parents they found when they arrived home from school on November 22.
NOV. 22
1963
FORT WORTH, TEX.
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I was at school when I heard about the President. I cried for two or three minuts. My mother also cried, and so did my teacher Mrs. Mansir. I was very sad for President Kennedy. He was my friend even though he didnt know me. Some of my school mates hid their faces in their arms in sadness. I told my father that I wish we could have you and your children to care for. Today I saw you and your husband at Carswell Air Forse Base. He was happy. It was terrible to have him shot. Ive been watching T.V. sense 3-40, friday. I respected him, I liked him. Would you please if you can send two photographs of you and President Kennedy. Thank you.
BEACON, NEW YORK
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
My dear Mrs Kennedy,
I know that in a tragic day like today, I shouldn’t be silly enough to write you a letter. And I know you probably won’t read this, and I will never have an answer. I am writing this in school. During the changing of classes there was a rumor that your husband had been shot. Nobody believed it. Nobody wanted to. I went back to my room and told my teacher about this rumor. She didn’t say much. About 5 minutes later, the principal announced over the intercom that the President had passed away. My teacher broke down in tears. No one else did because no one believed it. We got a radio and sat in class to listen to the news. Slowly, as I looked around, I saw everyone break down. The principal, the superintendent of schools and everyone was crying. The nurse came to my room to say that her office was packed with hysterical pupils, and that if any of us wanted to go to her office we could. I went because I was a nervous wreck. As I walked through the halls I noticed an unusual calm. I knew the rumor was true. I have grown up with[out] a father. Last year the head man on my list, my grandfather, passed away. Since then your husband was the man I looked up to. Your husband was the greatest President that I have ever heard of. I feel that I knew him as a man and a friend, not the head of a country. As I write this letter I burst into tears, over the loss of a great man. You had a great husband, and his memory will last forever.
Thank you for listening.
Sincerely,
Nancy Ashburn
P.S. I wish they would let me get my hands on the assassinator.
11/22/63
LYNBROOK, NY
My dear Mrs. Kennedy,
Now that I have started this letter I find how difficult it is to express sympathy for a loss as great as yours. Some would resort to tears. Some may be shocked into silence. Some would merely shrug and try to pretend that it never happened. My school showed sympathy with a traditional “half-mast” of the flag.
I cannot be traditional nor shrugging nor silent nor tearful. Many times I keep my deepest feelings to myself as I am keeping this expression of grief a secret from my family.
The news of Mr. Kennedy’s death was announced to me between classes. I felt, of course, astonishment then pain. A knot built up in my throat and tears threatened to overflow. My mind was briming with denials of the cold, hard fact that the President was dead. After school I hurried home only to find my news had reached there before me. On the way home I glanced at people going about their every day lives and I wondered if they knew. I was the messenger, the Mercury, to tell all of them what had happened. I tried to yell but the words stuck in my throat and found no release. The only relief I felt was upon stroking my dog’s head and watching the blue violet clouds go by, seeming to know of the tragedy for all their color.
Your husband’s death reminded me of another in Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage:
“…I see’ a feller git hit plum in th’ head when my reg’ment was a-standin’ at ease onct. An’ everybody yelled out to ’im: Hurt, John? Are yeh hurt much? ‘No,’ ses he. He looked kinder surprised, and he went on tellin’ ’em how he felt. He sed he didn’t feel nothin’. But, by dad, th’ first thing that feller knowed he was dead. Yes, he was dead—stone dead….
The reference may be harsh but Mr. Kennedy was in a battle too. He was a soldier in the regiment for peace. He was known throughout the world.
I implore you Mrs. Kennedy to pray, not for revenge, but for strength to continue. I am not a prominent head of state. My message will probably not reach anyone’s eyes but yours. I only want you to know that it carries the grief of a nation and of a fourteen year old, me.
I feel for you and sympathize with your grief.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I am a Catholic also, I go to Saint Georges School. I can remember Nov. 21, the day before you came. We go to mass every day, then we go to lunch. This day was different, after mass our pastor told us to sit down. I wondered to myself “Whats going on?”) Then he told us some wonderful news “Our wonderful president and his lovely wife are comming tomorrow.” Then terrible news “Only the 7th and 8th graders are going,” and wouldn’t you know I’m in the 6th grade! I couldn’t stand it! They got to go and I dident!
But we got to watch you on T.V. (There was such a big crowd, they didn’t get to see you anyway.) When you dident come, we got worried. Our class clapped when President Kennedy came, yet when you dident arrive, it left us wondering. We noticed that he didn’t smile. His first realy and truly grin, was when he saw you. Everyone in our classroom cheered and appualed. What excitement.
After mass we went to the chior pratice. I am an alto. We heard the phone ring, and after a moment she hung up (our principle Sister Leanardice) and rushed away. Everyone but me, was calm. I sencted something wrong. Then the mikeraphone was turned on, an a sad voice said “Kneel down and pray, the president has been shot.
Nearly everyone broke into tears. I tried to control myself. Then we heard that he was dead. I couldn’t believe it. Nancy Keeney who can’t controle herself, and who had cried sence he had been shot fainted, I almost did. We went for the lowering of the flag. Then we said a rosary for him. Everyone even me, cried, except for Debra De Milo, all she worried about was war. I got mad and told her “Fine time to worry about war. The president is dead, worry about him, he’s more important.
That evening large headlines covered our newspapers front page. Kennedy slain, Connally wounded. I wish I was as brave as you.
My sister goes to Incarnet Word said that his hair was surprisingly light.
If at all possible send me a picture of your family. Also if you have any time tell me a little about your family.
Mary McMillen
At least I can say, “The president had his last meal in my town. I can also say “I was born in Warshington D.C. (Doctors Hosbitle)
Yours Sincerly
Mary
NOV, 23, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
As I and many other people of the United States heard the shocking new of our late husband Mr. J.F. Kennedy made us bust out in tears. When I heard the shocking news the tears came out of my eyes very fast. I felt so bad. Then all of a soden I stop crying and thought about you. As I was thinking I said to my self I said how does poor Mrs Kenedy feal as she sat beside her husband when he was shot. Then when I went home from school I found my grammother sitting down in front of the television set. And I could see she was crying. So I said what’s the matter gram. She said she had heard the shocking news, and was thinking how you must of felt. Because in 1926 she was setting on the front pourch of her house with my gramfather when a group of man drove by the house in a car and shot my gramfather in the chest 3 times. Instintly he died. So she said she nows how you must feal.
I send my greatest simpathy to you and your family.
P.S.
I think God said he wanted your husband the man who searved his country well to join him in heaven now and no other time. God bless you and your children.
VASHON ISLAND VASHON, WASHINGTON NOVEMBER 24, 1963
Dear Mrs Kennedy,
Because of Caroline’s age, I thought you might appreciate knowing how my first grade class at Gatewood Elementary School, Seattle, Washington, reacted to the news of Friday’s tragic event.
I was seated with a group of “Dick and Janers” when a typed bulletin came to me from our school office. I glanced at it, expecting the usual rainy-day recess or some such announcement. Totally unprepared for its content, I gasped audibly and sat in stunned silence forgetting that the wide eyes of twenty-eight six-year-olds were upon me. One little girl brought me to with the question, “What’s the matter, Mrs. Mackey?”
The impulse came to spare them the news, and then I felt I had no right, young as they were, to rob them of living history. I said simply, “President Kennedy has been shot.” Familiar with the “good guys” of Westerns, one little boy said, “But he can get well.” Just then, our secretary came in to inform me that the anguish in my heart would have to stay. I told the children of the president’s death.
We have a television in our classroom and I switched it on. A priest was praying and we, the children and I, stood in silence. The coincidence that caused me to break the ruling of the Supreme Court outlawing prayer in a public school surely cannot be held against me.
I turned off the television and listened to the children’s chatter too shocked to move for a time. Some of their expressions stay with me: “That’s Caroline’s Daddy and I feel awful for her.” “I liked President Kennedy because he was so good.” “I’m going to say prayers, that’s what I’m going to do.” The rapidity with which these little ones grasped this terrible tragedy and their warm and spontaneous expressions of sympathy were amazing.
Soon the school flag, visible from our windows, was lowered to half-mast. We discussed this symbol of mourning and then they wanted to write about it. Large pencils in twenty-eight little hands wrote the history they were living:
”President Kennedy is dead. Our flag is at half-mast.”
They all seemed to want to print their best. Then with crayons they drew the flag at half-mast. Old Glory had some bizarre stripes, but each little artist went home with the dawn of patriotism and has sorrow for a fallen hero.
As I am writing these lines, downstairs in our home, my husband is seated at an ancient organ surrounded by three parishioners of our small island church, St. Patrick’s. Their voices and the organ are earnestly pouring out the Requiem which will be sung tomorrow at 9:30 A.M. for our beloved president.
Many miles away in the Jesuit House of Studies, Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama we are sure our only son, a seminarian, will be singing such a Mass too.
With deepest sympathy,
Vivian Mackey
WHITESTOWN, IND
JAN 20 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I am sorry that your husband died. When I heard about it I was in school. When I came in my teacher was crying. He wrote on the board what happend, when I saw that my heart skipped a couple beats. Then all of the sudden I felt sick. We watched everything on T.V. and went to church and prayed for him.
I sure felt bad about it. I am interested in him so I gave four reports on him.
After we got back in school this one girl asked why you couldn’t be President. The boys said because women weren’t smart enough. But I said if it weren’t for women men wouldn’t be here so that was the end of that. Bye for now.
Patricia Anne Hemmerle
LA PORTE,
TEXAS
DECEMBER 7, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
This is not the first letter I have started to you, for twice before in the weeks that have passed I have attempted to write, but could not. I think that the numbness and shock of personal grief which has been felt by the whole nation and the rest of the world had its grip on my own heart in such a way that words could not be found to express it.
I am not sure that now it is possible. Perhaps in giving you just a bit of my own life I may say it more clearly.
I am a teacher of second grade children. Our little town of La Porte here on the Gulf coast is within commuting distance of Houston and two of my pupils at school were with their parents among the thousands who lined the streets of Houston the day you were there. It had been our pleasure to have the newspaper picture of John John (in the open door beneath his father’s desk) on our bulletin board for several days. It had been brought to school and put there by one of the children.
So aside from the fact that they had actually seen their president, the report of the day in Houston had special meaning for the other children because of John John (I think you should know that little children love that picture and that it is one of our most prized possessions).
The TV program at school brought us this tragic news and it was as if it had been a member of their own families.
You can not know these things unless we tell you, and I am sure you have had many thousands of letters come to you. Somehow in writing my own I have felt that perhaps I might let you know how children feel, too—for it is a personal sorrow with them, as with adults the world over.
It has, indeed, been a personal one with my husband and me and with our friends and fellow teachers. I can only tell you of this—how we met in our principal’s office and listened, and cried together as a faculty, and how we sent our students home that day with the knowledge of national tragedy and sorrow a part of that day’s education. But I hope and pray that it may be a source of comfort to you now to know that each day will bring its own opportunity to all of us to strengthen and carry on in our education of even the very young children the direction which your loved one gave his life for. His ideals live on—just as he will—in the hearts and minds of all of us.
We have an only son who is now a graduate student in Duke University. It was his birthday and when he was at Texas University in the four years just past, we have always phoned on the birthdays he could not spend at home. That night we called him in North Carolina. He is a member of a group of twelve graduate students, admitted in June for the two-year program in Hospital Administration at Duke. He shares quarters with another member of the group, and usually we get the roommate when we call, but this time our son, Stan, answered.
It was his birthday (his 24th) and of course if it were to do over, I would still call as we have always done in the past. But when he heard my voice he said “Oh Mother—” and began to sob. I have not heard him cry since he was ten, but over 1500 miles of distance throughout my call he could not talk—he only cried.
Young men in graduate school, parents at home, little children who saw their president in Houston, a principal and his staff of 22 teachers—this is a small cross-section of our great nation, but it happened to be the part that I had knowledge of at the time. It is for these people, as well as myself, that I write to you now. It may be some time before you read my letter in the many many others which I am sure you have yet to give attention to, but I do hope that some day this one may reach you, to bring you our love, and our earnest prayer that you will always remember he is not lost to you—nor to us. And what he meant to our Nation will live on. It will live on—through graduate students, their teachers, and through little children who will learn from their teachers, and parents and others, the concepts of greatness which were so much a part of your dear husband.
We were privileged to see it in you in the days that followed—true courage and dignity—all that American womanhood could ever aspire to! God bless you and keep you, and may His special gifts of tenderness and love be with you and your precious children, in all the days to come.
DECEMBER 1963
PONTIAC, MICHIGAN
Dear Mrs Kennedy,
I was shocked to hear of your husband’s death.
I was coming home from school and was feeling fine. My mother had tears in her eyes when I saw her. I asked her what was the matter because she had tears in her eyes They didn’t tell use about the tragedy at school. My first though was that is wasn’t true. I wish it wasn’t. But I turned to her and her eyes had truth in them. I broke down and cryed.
It was like a nightmare for the whole nation. The world died a little bit it self when John Fitzgerald Kennedy died.
This is something I will never forget. I am 11 years old. I wrote Mr. Kennedy a letter after the eletion to tell him how happy I was he had won. and when I was looking at the funeral on telivison I cryed through the whole thing It was so sad.
I still have the letter that he sent me. I will show it to my children when I grow up.
President Kennedy will never be forgotten in the United States of America.
Yours truly,
Nancy Taylor
SANTA CLARA,
CALIFORNIA
NOVEMBER 24, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
As I sat watching the T.V. set this afternoon, I decided to write to you and to extend my sincere sorrow and that my fellow-eighth graders at St. Clare’s School, California.
On the morning of November 22, our school of 750 pupils were at a requiem Mass for all the deceased of parish. At the beginning of the Mass, we were told that our beloved president was shot. I tried to tell myself he would be all right but somehow I knew he wouldn’t. I tried to control myself as I had to play the church organ but the tears wouldn’t stop. The slightly damp keys were hard to play but I offered it up that the President might live.
Though we didn’t know it then but while 750 children with tear-streaked faces and slightly reddened eyes were receiving Holy Communion, the 35th President of the United States went to his eternal reward in heaven. I firmly believe that your husband is sitting up in heaven—right next to Lincoln.
Though I never knew President Kennedy or so much as saw him except on T.V. and in pictures, I feel as though I have had the pleasure of meeting him in person. If I live until 103, his memory will live on within me as I’m sure it will within all his personal friends and especially you, his beloved wife.
Please accept my sincere sympathy and my many prayers.
May God give you courage for the years ahead and bestow upon you many blessings.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I wanted to write long ago, but somehow I’ve never found the time. First, please let me introduce myself. My name is Elisabeth Zimmerman and I was born in Grenoble, France on April 3, 1951. I have never known what it is to be an American until November 22, 1963. Now, when the teacher calls on me in school and asks, “What is Nationalism?” I can describe it perfectly. November 22, 1963 is a date you don’t have to write down to remember. I will remember it perfectly, forever.
It was around 1 o’clock in the afternoon and I was happily walking to the library when a negro boy approached me and asked, “Did you hear about the President? He was shot!” I merely nodded and thought he had some nerve thinking such bad thoughts about the President. I never so much as had an inkling, or maybe thought for a split second this maybe true. I had completely forgotten the President and Mrs. Kennedy had gone to Dallas but it wouldn’t have made a difference because I didn’t know what kind of a city it was. So I just continued on my way not giving a second thought to these very true words. But the second I opened the door to the library I knew he was right. It was true. The library’s radio was on which it never is and was saying the President was having a transfusion, et cetera, et cetera. I just stood and thought of My President just lying down, surrounded with doctors and nurses trying to save his life but I couldn’t. My knees felt weak and I quickly sank into a chair. I didn’t cry, I couldn’t. I could just run home to tell everybody. But everybody knew. Everybody was listening to the radio and I jointed them until around 1:30 p.m. when the news that changed everyone’s life came.
THE PRESIDENT IS DEAD.
I went into my room and closed the door. I saw two, little children smiling up proudly at their parents. I saw my President making a speech and shaking his ever wagging finger. I saw my First Lady waving and smiling and I cried like I never cried before. I looked out the window at the unsuspecting people doing their usual things and I longed to call out “The President is dead. The President is dead. He’s dead. He’s dead!” But I only lifted my face toward heaven and I asked God one simple question.
WHY?
I don’t know why, you don’t know why, only G-D knows. But G-D doesn’t want to tell. He made my President die an awful death. An unexpected, instant death. And the man who could have said so much was also killed. G-D made it very obvious that he didn’t want his people to know.
WHY?
I have learned a great lesson. Don’t take things for granted. I took it for granted John Fitzgerald Kennedy would be President again. I took it for granted that when I went to Washington this year I would maybe see my President and my First Lady and their children. I am in the 8th grade and in my school the 8th graders always go to Washington in around May. Now, I might see a President Johnson. But I don’t want to, yet there’s nothing I can do. I wish I had seen John Fitzgerald Kennedy so I could have something to remember him by. But I have only my magazines which I keep in a special drawer, “My President Kennedy Drawer” I call it. I know these magazines by heart, yet always I look at them and cry over them, and always I find something new. For the first time on November 26, 1963 I wished I had school.…I know I will never forget John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In school, I sit next to the window facing broadway. There is a big, white thing, a garage I think and on it is a star. Around a foot away in big red letters it says TEXACO, a name of a gasoline. You see now why I don’t forget. I am dismissed from school at quarter to five and get home at around 5:30 p.m. One day, it was one of these lovely days. I was walking home from school towards River Side Drive where the Hudson River is located. It happened to be snowing and it was beautiful. Suddenly, I stopped by a car. I looked around taking in the scene. Twilight. Sunset. the sun streaked with pink and violet. Tall street lamps intensifying the beautiful, white snowflakes against the darkness of this twilight. The snow was falling softly, frosting everything with an icing of white. The car I stopped by was covered with a thick blanket of this lustrous white. I acted on impulse. With my hand, I carved a little square and next to it a flicker of snow shaped like a flame. On the square I wrote J.F.K. and cleared the snow from around it. When you write about it, it is nothing. When you do it, it is something. I wrote mainly to say I love John F. Kennedy and when I stop to think, I find that I mourn for him more as a father of two lovely children and a husband of a charming woman more than as the President of the United States….
Next time you visit The Grave please give the President my regards. Thank you. I can’t wait to go to Washington being in the 8th grade. I often dream of being there and suddenly seeing you with Careline and John Jr. But it is a foolish dream. Yet still I dream. Every night before falling asleep I picture Careline and John Jr. sleeping peacefully. Then I picture my President lying, and a split second latler his grave with the eternal flame burning brightly. Then, I picture you Mrs. Kennedy, dressed in black with red, swollen eyes and I throw a kiss, and whisper “bon soir.”
Yes, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is dead. But his memory is not and will live throughout history, forever.
Yours very affectionately,
Elisabeth Zimmerman
P.S. If you don’t wish me to continue writing, please let me know.
As November 22 unfolded, Americans learned of the President’s assassination in a myriad of settings. The circumstances in which they heard the news loomed very large in the minds of many from the start. In public places, walls between strangers tumbled down as reports of the President’s death spread. On busy city sidewalks, in buses, taxicabs, department stores, and hospitals, citizens tried to absorb facts that seemed truly unfathomable. Patients in hospitals described receiving the news as they lay in their sick beds. “I don’t know how to begin to tell you how I felt when one of the Nurse’s Aide’s came into our room and said have you heard?” wrote one hospitalized woman who was awaiting surgery. “The President has been shot! What startling words!!!!! Oh! God! no, I uttered…. We were sick in the hospital but we felt much worse with the President’s passing.” One man dying of cancer in a Veteran’s hospital turned to his daughter and asked, “Why couldn’t it have been me? He was so young.” At college football practices, in small Alaskan Indian villages, in post offices, and along mail delivery routes, word of the President’s death reached around the country, instantly halting the daily activities of millions.
BELLE HARBOR, L
I.
N.Y.
NOV. 25TH 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
May God bless you today and always. My family joins me in a prayer for your well being at this sad time. I feel compelled to write to you and try to express my sorrow at the incalculable loss suffered by us all. Life’s tragedies leave their ineffable marks on every human being, but the loss of our beloved President brought such deep, profound sorrow, we shall never forget. Words cannot express my emotions. I am frustrated and at a loss to convey to you the depths of my feelings.
The news came blasting at me from a woman with a transistor radio clutched to her ear, while shopping at Bloomingdales in New York City. Suddenly, strangers were strangers no longer. We turned to one another unbelieving and shocked. We shook our heads—this could not be! A crowd of us ran to the radio department and the world stopped still. The salespeople gathered with the customers, about the floor in trance like clusters—some sitting or down on their knees—all straining to catch every word. When what we dreaded came true, we were all crushed, defeated. I was reduced to an automaton—a sleep walker hoping to awaken soon from a horrible nightmare. Plans for shopping put aside, my walk down to the subway was unreal. The man who took my change for tokens; the news vendor; the conductor; the people young and old of all races, suddenly became united by the heavy burden we carried in our hearts. I saw groups of school children with bewildered grief written on their faces. Men and women wept openly and unashamedly. The same scenes prevailed on the bus I took to get to Belle Harbor. There was much silent meditation and prayers and those who spoke did so in hushed whispers—of your husband’s goodness, his great leadership, his intellectual prowess his youth and his accomplishments.
At home, I found my children at the television set with tears in their eyes. We clung to one another for some one near and dear to us had passed on. We prayed for you and your family—for America—and for the world.
May God give you strength and many years. May your children and my children grow up unafraid and brave—in a better America because of your husband and the inspiring heritage he left us all. Amen
DENVER, COLORADO
JANUARY 12, 1964
Mrs. John F. Kennedy:
Please allow me, a cab driver, to offer my condolences to you & your children.
The day this terrible thing happened—I think about 90% of the people of Denver cried a little bit—Everyone who got in my cab—People on the street—In the stores—patrons—clerks—cops—I saw people just standing on the corner—Just—Just unbelieving.
Well, I guess we can all shed tears—Mrs. Kennedy.
I might add—Since this tragic day I have heard so many comments on how well Mrs. Kennedy stood up under it all.
You have more strength than most of us American People! You are admired for this.
All I can say is—May God Bless you, “John John” & “Carolyn”
My heart goes out to you all—!
Why! Why! I’m still asking myself why—!
God Bless You & Yours!
Miller A. Alley
SATURDAY, NOV. 23, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy;
Please forgive me for this intrusion during your mourning period of your very recent bereavement. It is with deep regret that I must write this letter, but in order to regain peace in mind, I feel that I am compelled to do so. As you read on, I hope that you will understand why.
First, I wish to introduce myself in a rather blunt way. My name, Leonard C. Rice, age 45,—occupation mail carrier,—military service, W.W. II, Korean & USN retired,—local community standing, plain ordinary citizen,—political ambition none,—other ambitions, to raise my family & to live & let live in peace.
Yesterday morning Friday Nov 22, as I was carrying my route, one of my patrons told me the tragic news that the President met with a tragedy. It came as a stunning shock to me, but as brutal as it may sound, not as a complete surprise.
After recovering from the feeling of nausea, my mind flashed back to a short time after Mr. Kennedy had become president-elect. My mother in law, mother & father & I were were discussing the prospects of our future president, who we helped elect in our humble way by casting our ballots for him. In our conversation, we agreed that Mr Kennedy would have a very difficult time with his new administration duties in these very trying times, and that he would be under fire during most of the time that he is in office. Also, in the conversation, I made the predictions that I now wish that I had kept my mouth shut & let well enough alone. I predicted that a strong attempt would be made to have Mr Kennedy impeached, or he would be a victim or attempted victim of an assassin. I then made the augury that if Mr Kennedy should survive these attempts through his term or terms in office, that he would go down in American history as one of the greatest presidents that our nation has ever had.
I now return to the time of yesterday, as the reports poured in from the people on my route (almost from house to house) on the Presidents condition, a prayer was on my lips as with millions of other Americans for his recovery. My prayer continued up to & beyond the time of the even more tragic news of his death, that he would survive recuperate & carry on his term of office, thus fulfilling the last part of prophecy.
After returning home & listening to the news reports & then spending a restless night still clinging to the hope it was all a nightmare, I was confronted with the blazing headlines of the morning paper, only then was I fully aware of the awful tragedy.
I know now that my prayers were not in vain. for Mr. Kennedy was a very great man and as truly a great president. I am proud, just as millions of other Americans must be, to have served under a president with courage beyond compare.
POMONA, CALIFORNIA
FEBRUARY 4, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I feel a great need to express to you the shock, dismay and grief that I, my family and everyone I know, felt at your husband’s tragic death. Even now, months later, it is impossible to view his name or his picture without a lump coming into my throat. An old Peter Lawford motion picture on television will remind me of your husband, and I cannot bear to watch.
My husband and I had looked forward to November 22 for almost a year. We had gone through all the red tape of adopting a wonderful little boy from the Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions, and the final steps to make him our legal son were to be taken on November 22. All our thoughts and efforts that week were directed to our morning in court which was to be a cause for celebration.
We were not even aware of the President’s trip to Texas. Sitting in court in our best clothes, waiting to be called into the judge’s chambers we heard the first report of the shooting from a late arriving lawyer. We were shocked and though we took our turn in the judge’s chambers and our son became our heir, our thoughts were on the President and you.
In our lawyer’s office as we directed him regarding the drawing up of our wills, we heard the unconfirmed news of the President’s death. We hurriedly finished our business with the lawyer and dashed home where we learned the final truth from the television.
My husband is normally an undemonstrative man. He was on the verge of tears.
We lived in a vacuum that week end. Watching television, unable to escape one minute from the tragedy, it was worse than a family death for us. And many have said publicly, your dignity and self control were majestic. We were very proud of you and of your children, the sight of whom broke our hearts.
When your official year of mourning is over, I hope that you will return to some facet of public life. You are qualified to enter so many fields—art, journalism, government, fashion, etc. You truly have become a symbol and a goal for American womanhood with your sense of beauty, dignity and grace.
This letter is most inadequate, but it is my only way to express my deep concerns for you and your family.
Sincerely,
Janeen Ostby
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I have never seen our football players cry…but today, they did.
CUSTER, MICHIGAN
NOVEMBER 23, 1963
Most Gracious Lady, Jackie and children,
May I, one of the millions of little people dedicated to serving under our President, and a clerk in a small third class office of the Postal Department extend my deepest sympathy to you and yours at this time.
At the announcement of the tragedy my associate and I immediately began a silent prayer that our beloved leader would live. When the announcement of his death came it was my duty to lower our flag to half mast.
I can not explain the emotion I felt and the saddness in my heart at our loss as I lowered the Flag. Never even with the loss of several of my family have I been more deeply touched than with the loss of President Kennedy.
I only pray that this life taken so unjustly has not gone in vain and our nation survive the loss.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Frances Nash
NOVEMBER 22,
1963
ST. LUKE’S MISSION
SHAGELUK, ALASKA
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I want to convey to you my own personal grief at the news of the death of the President. The news came as an unbelievable shock and brought me to my knees with a prayer for your husband and you and your children.
This evening at seven our parish hall was full as we prayed and celebrated a Requiem Eucharist for the President. During the day I visited most of the homes in our small Indian village and everywhere I went I could see the deep sorrow and concern everyone feels at this time. Several people walked over two miles at ten degrees below zero to attend the Requiem. Your husband is loved and respected by the people of Shageluk.
Please know that you and your children shall be constantly in our prayers in the days to come.
God bless you.
NOVEMBER 23, 1963
Dear Mrs J. F. Kennedy & family
We send our most sincere sympathy. It seems as though a part of us all has died and I believe most others feel the same.
We have four girls (Lisa Marie 41/2, Monique 31/2, Michelle 21/2, Je’Neanne 1 and one expected January 19th). The evening of Friday November 22nd and in a May Co. window our oldest stopped fast—there were a group of people standing in front of a picture of President J. F. Kennedy with his birth and death dates. She pressed her face up against the window and looked at the picture for what seemed like a very long time. She turned and looked at us. (I hadn’t realized at the time that she had been paying attention to the T.V. announcements during the day but apparently she had). I believe our little one expressed the thoughts of millions although only 41/2 she came out with a child’s sincere thoughts that we will never forget and am sure all those present won’t either.
“Mama, look at his face—he’s so good—maybe God didn’t think we loved him enough. Why did someone shoot and hurt him?”
By the time she had finished, tear stained faces turned our way—she looked for an answer—I was so taken with her thoughts that I just shook my head and said “I don’t know” and tried holding back the tears. One lady stepped up in front of us and said “How old is she?” I told her 41/2. “If a child of 41/2 can feel that way—then how much more should we grown ups really think and feel responsible for the horrible thing that has happened in our country.”
He tried to do so much for so many—“maybe God didn’t think we loved him enough”
May the sympathy of your friends help you throughout your sorrow. May God give you hope and courage to meet each new tomorrow.
With our most sincere sympathy,
Mr & Mrs. Roland A. Fiola
Lisa, Monique, Michelle and Je’Neanne
Fiola
(My husband was born in Fall River, Mass) and we know how the people of that area must feel. May God bless you and yours through both tradgies suffered this year.
LOS ANGELES,
CALIF.
NOV. 29, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy—
Enclosed is a copy of a letter written by our son, Larry Jackson.
I believe that it is self-explanatory; an expression of grief from one young American.
May I offer our personal salute to you, Mrs. Kennedy, for your singular courage and quiet fortitude during these dark days? You are a splendid example to us all.
Saint Mary’s College
California
November 22, 1963
Dear Mom and Dad,
Why?
He towered above them all
He exuded greatness, overshadowing opposition
He had vitality, drive, ambition, charm
He had wisdom, control, maturity, decisiveness
He had love, for God and men
He took over the helm of the nation
He challenged the people for their responsibility
He led them all in accepting it
He stood for justice, truth, and liberty
He resisted ignorance, hate, and apathy
He astounded with patience and courage
He spoke and was heard
He commanded and was obeyed
He loved and was loved
He did what he knew was right
He was hailed by a hopeful world shouting cries of “Kennedy! Kennedy!”
His life was precious to all
And so they shot him.
Again, why? The whole thing is too horrible and shocking to believe. I’m not angry—I’m sick. I don’t want blood—I want an answer. I don’t want to kill—I just want to cry.
This is my hope. That Kennedy, like Christ, is love struck down by hate; and that, in a way like Christ, he will rise again from the coldness of death to which the forces of hate seem to have damned him. His spirit will live on with his followers to defeat these enemies of humanity, tearing them down from their pedestal of petty triumph and hate and injustice, but I hope that this great sacrifice succeeds in somehow lessening their effects on us. We cannot make him into a martyr because that’s just what he is. Bewilderedly, we ask the question “Why?” Let’s hope that there is an answer. Let’s hope he did not die without cause. Such a thought is unbearable.
College students are not without feelings. Their interests were pretty apparent today. One hour after the news of his death, the chapel was packed with an unprecedented amount of students for noon Mass. Stunned silence reigned over the campus and people walked around with glazed looks. Red eyes were not infrequent. The flag flew at half-mast while the SMC on the hillside was reverently changed to the letters JFK. The announcement at an unusually quiet lunch that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day drew no cheers. This was not empty sentimentality, it was really deep feeling.
I am looking forward to coming home and seeing you all, hoping that these expectations will clear away the depressed mood I’m in. It’s raining now; I know that it’s silly and it’s been raining on and off for the past few weeks, but I can’t help feeling the world is crying.
Love,
Larry
Some who received news of JFK’s assassination were old enough to remember the assassination of other Presidents. Three previous American Presidents had died in office from an assassin’s bullet—Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), and William McKinley (1901)—tragedies that fell within the life experience of several elderly Americans in 1963. As one ninety-year-old Californian wrote to John F. Kennedy Jr., “I was born the first day of April 1873 and your father is the third president of the U.S.A. that has been killed in my time. I was around 6 years old when Garfield was killed and about 21 when McKinley was killed and I was 90 years and 8 months old when your father was torn from us.”
Kennedy’s death likewise evoked memories of the last President to die in office—Franklin Roosevelt. Letter writers recalled how shocked they were on April 12, 1945, when word came of FDR’s death. The most common point of historical reference in the condolence letters, however, was the assassination—or the “martyrdom,” as many put it—of Lincoln. No previous assassination of a President took place, however, in a period when mass communication permitted such rapid and wide access to news, images, and analysis of the event.
Many stressed that Kennedy’s youth and vitality, as well as the assassination’s ghastly circumstances, made his death especially harrowing. “I am old enough,” one retired navy captain wrote to Mrs Kennedy, “to have heard the moan of the nation upon the death of President McKinley and I remember well the angry, mournful growl which rose from its throat following disastrous Pearl Harbor, but never have I seen nor heard such overwhelming national grief, nor do I believe has anyone.” “We have just seen,” he observed, “the strongest nation on earth brought sobbing to its knees in abject grief for the first time in living man’s memory.”
CAMDEN, W. VA.
DEC. 1, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy
I want to express my sympathy in your great loss, and in this trying hour of our Nation. It is with sorrow I have to say I have seen all four of our Presidents assassinated, as I Celebrated my 99th birthday Nov. 22. It Certainly was a very sad evening for me, as well all West Virginians.
We had learnd to love the President, as he was so interested in our state. The Nation has lost a great leader.
May God bless you and the Children is my prayer.
Sincerely
Perry C. Gum
CLEVELAND
HEIGHTS, OHIO
NOVEMBER 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
Your bitter experiences of the past few days should never have happened, but it did. It has happened to an infinite number of persons who have unexpectedly been made widows and fatherless. It has happened to very few families who had previously given their husbands and fathers to the lonely responsibility of the Presidency.
When I was a child my Grandfather told me of the dreadful loss of the man who was both his father and President of the United States. At the time of his father’s assassination in 1881 my Grandfather was fifteen years of age. Perhaps your children are blessed by not yet realizing their terrible double loss. Losing a parent so prematurely as many of us have is a great loss, but the loss of one who is loved and respected by so many for such remarkable capacities apart from the personal family relationships is perhaps even more acute. Your children will come to know him through you.
Only now have I come to have some realization of the great personal loss which Grandmother Garfield felt at the time of her husband’s death. No longer is it only an isolated fact in history. Assassination is merely a dry euphemism which applies to the outright murder of so prominent a person. The terminology does not lessen the pain of those who are involved at the time. This has been a personal loss to us all.
I write to extend our sincere wishes for your continued strength beyond the immediate trial to which you have been subjected. The tragic happenings of the past few hours have made more obvious to each of us the supreme gift a man must make in his acceptance of such responsibilities. A consequence so violent and unnecessary seems impossible in our present day existence, but I fear we have made less progress than we believed. God willing, the price exacted from you and your family will in some way contribute to a greater maturity and selflessness in all of us and to the realization of the peace and understanding your husband sought for his country.
Your remarkable dignity and strength during this time have been a great lesson to us all. You have our deepest affection and greatest admiration.
MOORESTOWN, NEW JERSEY.
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
Tonight, in the homes of the millions of average families who make up this nation, virtually every thought is of you, your children and your sorrow. Many of us wish we could find some words to console you and let you know that, to whatever extent it is possible, we share you grief. You lost your husband; we lost our president and our leader.
Perhaps, since your husband was a student of history, the phrases which come closest to saying what is on the heart of this family tonight were written by another president, also martyred, to another wife and mother: Abraham Lincoln in his letter to Mrs. Bixby. In it, he wrote in part:
“I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.….
“I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
Our prayers, our thoughts and our wishes are with you and yours.
Sincerely,
Fred R. Zepp
NOVEMBER 23,
1963
DOVER, DELAWARE
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
What can anyone say at a time like this, only that I’m sorry. I was ten years old when President McKinley was killed and I never thought I would live through a second Presidential Assassination, in this wonderful country of ours.
God Bless you and your family and take care of yourself.
ILLINOIS
NOVEMBER 27, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy and family,
Finding the right words of comfort at a time like this is always difficult because all the words in the world won’t bring a loved one back. His laugh will never again be heard, his smile, seen or his hand, felt. In another way, however, he will never die. In our religion we say that as long as a person is remembered, he is still living; therefore, John F. Kennedy will never die. He will live on in the thoughts of those who knew and loved him. He will live on in history, never to be forgotten.
No one will forget what he was doing on Friday, November 22, 1963, when he heard the news that John F. Kenned had been shot. No one will forget what seemed like the hours we waited until we heard the final, awful news that he was dead. While watching the television show “As the World Turns” the news announcement came. While waiting for the announcer to say what the news was, I thought to myself, “What election results in some outlying location is he going to tell us this time.” When he finally said that the President had been shot I stared in disbelief at the set. There must be some mistake. This doesn’t happen in the United States. It doesn’t happen now. This happens only in history books.
My thoughts immediately went back to another day in 1945, when I was nine years old, and listening to “Terry and the Pirates” and the announcer broke in to say that Franklin Roosevelt had died. I remember going down to tell Mother, who was in the kitchen making dinner. She told me that it must have been part of the story. Finally I convinced her to turn on the radio and she heard the news for herself and began to cry. At the time I wondered why. Now I know. For I cried Friday.
With the advent of television the average person is even better acquainted with the President than he was in 1945. The President is seen regularly and one can’t help but feel that he is a member of one’s own family or that of a next door neighbor. John F. Kennedy was more than a politician giving speeches. He was a human being with a wife and family. The people knew him as a wonderful father, husband, brother, and son. After the initial news that the President had been shot, I was glued to the television set until the phone rang. While talking I happened to look out and noticed that the flag at the school, which can be seen from the kitchen window, had been lowered. At the same time it was announced on television that John F. Kennedy was dead. My heart sunk.
The rest of the afternoon I, like many others, was in a daze. The baby had to be dressed to go to visit her grandmother and I, too, had to dress. I really didn’t feel like going, but there was no way out of it. It was raining outside and the traffic was heavy. However, even though it was the rush hour, no one seemed to be rushing. There wasn’t the usual screeching of brakes and honking of horns. Everyone was listening to the radio and in a state of shock. The drive took twice as long as it usually does, but no one seemed to be conscious of it. Dinner was eaten and my husband, the baby and I went home. The radio was on during the whole ride. Usually it is not. But the day hadn’t been a normal one. John F. Kennedy had been killed. When we got home, the television was turned on; and we watched transfixed before it. It remained on most of our waking hours until late Monday night….
Each person wished that there was something that he or she could do for the grieving family. Why worry about the nation? Luckily we live in America where when one person dies our whole political system is not thrown up for grabs. There are no new forces to take over the government. It will go on pretty much as it has always gone on. But the family of John F. Kennedy will never be the same. You’ve lost a husband, a father, a brother, a son, a cousin, or a very close relative. And we, the people, have lost a friend. Our sadness lies not in the fact that we have lost a friend, but, because we feel that, in a way, we are all responsible for your loss; and there is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing we can say. But we must do something. So we enclose this money to be used for the benefit of retarded children or in any other way that you think best. It is the least that we can do.
Our hearts cry for you and for your family. You have shown us and the world the dignity and the strength you have. We hope you know our thoughts are with you. You are not alone in your grief. If when we turn on the radio and we are offended by the noise and the uselessness of the regular programs, commercials, and music; we can imagine how you must feel. We can’t seem to concentrate on anything, it all seems too trivial. But we must continue because life must go on for the living. That is what John F. Kennedy would have wanted. He wouldn’t want us all to collapse because of his death. As a tribute to him we must try to make the world a better place to live so that this type of thing will never have to happen again. We hope that in some way this letter shows you how so many of us feel and will, in some small way, help you in picking up the threads of your lives and weaving them back together.
Sincerely,
The Howard A. Jacobs family
Many Americans who were overseas felt an acute sense of dislocation when they learned of President Kennedy’s assassination. Those who wrote to loved ones in the United States described not only the specific circumstances in which they heard the news but also the reaction in the far-flung places where they found themselves on November 22 and in the immediate days following. The raw emotion and painstaking detail in these letters deeply impressed their families, many of whom enclosed these messages in their own condolence notes to Jacqueline Kennedy.
JAN. 25, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
My husband sent me this letter when he was in Trondheim Norway, on Nov. 22nd when he was on tour with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
He expressed in words what I felt in my heart & I feel I would like to share this with you.
With most heartfelt wishes for you & your family,
Respectfully,
Katherine Stamos
Torrance, California
Trondheim, Den Nov. 22 1963
Time 10:30 P.M.
My dearest wife—
This is one of the darkest moments of my life—tonight as we were awaiting Henry to come on-stage between the pieces during a concert—there was a great delay—then finally he and Jackie came on and started an aria—we played about 1 minute then he stopped and said “I can’t go on any more—President Kennedy has been assassinated.”—then next thing I knew I was crying, as if I lost my own brother or father—but more than our own personal lost—we have lost our leader, our hope for a better world within our own lifetime. They did the same thing to Christ, to Lincoln—and now Kennedy—may God help us in this hour of great darkness—our faith must be strong as Kennedy’s was—he took the chance—to try and reform the hidden ignorance, the bigotry of the past and now he has become a martyr. He has touched our own personal lives. I would not be here if it weren’t for Kennedy, trying to show the world that we are a cultured people. But some of us aren’t—as long as we have fanatacism to have produced such a dastardly deed.
You remember when we first came to Dallas, the day after he was elected—the place was in mourning—I always sensed that ignorance was somewhere nearby—it is quite ironic that this should be scene—the modern day “Calvary”—at least he died near his wife—and as Senator Mansfield said “He has gone to his reward”—may his example serve as an inspiration to each and every one of us—may we never forget what he fought for—equal-rights for all men, peaceful co-existence and like Roosevelt’s dream of a one world nation
I feel that these things must be said, and only to you my dearest wife because it is in moments such as these that only you understand—I never felt so lonely, so much in need of you, to have you nearby—than now—we are all stricken—we all wished we were home—the news as it comes over the radio has to be translated to us.
I pray, and we must all pray, that his nation shall triumph no matter how many crosses we have to bear—and this is truly a heavy-one indeed—because without faith we are lost—this country was founded on faith. And we must each try and carry on these ideals in our own lives—that’s the way men like Jack Kennedy hoped for the people of his country.
Pardon this letter of thinking out loud—I know how you must feel—keep up your spirit—I’ll be home soon—God bless you and everyone there
Your husband. Spiro
CHRISTMAS 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy
I do not know if you will actually see this yourself but I hope very much that you will read the enclosed copy of a letter I received from my daughter who is teaching English in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. She expresses what we all feel and I think you would like to read her letter.
I wish you and your wonderful children the very best. I have the greatest admiration for you and know that you will make a fine new life for yourself and your family.
Very sincerely,
(Mrs. John) Anna Lounsbery
November 23
Dear Mom—
Even the Ethiopian sky is in mourning today, and it was raining last night when President Kennedy died. We were having a housewarming party for the nurses when Ron came in with the news. We didn’t believe him until he turned on the radio—we sat in silent horror and each time the words were repeated it was a new shock—and still is today, and will be for a long time to come, for presidents aren’t assassinated in the modern world. I remember that you cried when Roosevelt died, but of course it meant nothing to me. I feel now as if a member of my family had died. In a very real sense he was our idol; he is the reason for our being here—his idealism, his courage. It is difficult being away from home at a time like this, yet in a way, it is even more meaningful, for we can sense and see the deep sorrow and respect for this great man felt by foreigners—people who never knew him, but know of and about him. Flags are flying at half mast, radios are playing masses and requiems, our Ethiopian friends have come quietly to express their grief, His and Her Highnesses had an audience with us to show their sorrow. The irony of Lincoln, first champion of civil rights and equality, being killed by a maniac, and now Kennedy—so much like him, both being succeeded by Johnson, a hundred years ago it was called the Reconstruction period, and indeed, that is what the years to come will be—a period to reconstruct and attempt to follow the patterns of thought and action so vigorously set down by Kennedy. Truly, the greatest tribute anyone could pay to this man is to shake off complacency, examine one’s own heart and mind, and dedicate oneself to the cause of peace, and the eradication of poverty, disease, and inequality. The world is hurt, angry, and weeps. Shall he have lived and died in vain; shall he be a martyr? Surely history will be changed—I pray that we may all learn from him, and work better because of him.
With Love, Annie
16, JAN.
1964
PITTSBURGH, PA 15227
My dear Mrs. Kennedy;
I realize with the tremendous amount of mail you are receiving—it is impossible for you to read it all.
Never the less—I sincerely hope you will be able to read this one.
Last Nov. 30, we received a letter from our son, who is in the U.S. Army Signal Corps—stationed in Mannheim Germany.
We think it is a beautiful letter, and would like to share it with you.
When we first received it—I considered sending it to you—but didn’t.
Now, at the suggestion of many friends & neighbors who have read it—I am sending you a copy. (I just cant part with the original letter!).
May God Bless You And Your Family,
Mannheim, Germany
26, Nov. 1963
Dear Mom and Dad,
Now that all the tragedy is over—or at least I pray to the Almighty Spirit that it is over—I begin a letter of condolence. And that is as it should be; for we are Americans.
Any eulogy that I may attempt will fall short of those already made, and also far short of what is necessary. He is dead. The President is dead, and he has just been buried. He now becomes history. I am crying now because my President is dead, final and forever. If he had not gone to Dallas; if he’d been sick that day; if it had rained the bubble would have been up. If, if…we might have had his leadership a little longer. If a cruel, cool, selfish animal had not wanted to rob us of our hope and our temperament, then we would not know this loss.
I had the good fortune to see the funeral walk to the church via Telstar in Christa’s home and I felt pride. Proud of all the world’s leaders paying tribute; proud of the bright sunny day in our Nation’s Capitol; proud of the more than three-quarters of a million Americans paying silent tribute, and proud; deeply proud of his widow, herself proud and strident in grief; as it should be, for she is of a noble family.
We did not see the funeral service, or anything that followed. We were then in Berlin, in a massive square; acres of faces, some young and alert, some old and crying, some straining to see, some with their heads bowed and all quiet, all these many, many people. Two speakers spoke and although I do not speak good German, I understood. I understood every pause, every choke, and every gesture. I understood the signs in the crowd, reading “Wir haben einen gute freund verloren” (We have lost a good friend), and “J.F.K. er war eine Berliner” (J.F.K. was a Berliner), and I understood the speakers restating the phrase, “Ich bin eine Berliner”—with feeling and grief. A silent large photograph of him, taken during his famous trip, being over the scene and then the speakers stopped, and the camera switched rapidly to an American soldier, in full dress. He slowly lifted the bugle to his lips and played taps, and I was proud. My chin was high and the salt tears flowed, as they are now. Then all the lights went out, and then came suddenly on, lighting up this huge square as John F. Kennedy Platz—which I Will See. An hour later they lit the eternal light over his grave, lighting a way to freedom, and to peace.
This whole hideous thing need not have happened. But it did and we, too, are a part of this history; part of its horrible beginning and part of its peaceful end.
Love, Ray
Lt. Raymond A. Melder
As Americans absorbed the shock of President Kennedy’s assassination, the President’s body was brought back to Washington, D.C., on Air Force One, leaving Dallas less than two hours and twenty minutes after the assassination. Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office as the nation’s thirty-sixth President aboard the aircraft before its departure. The return of Air Force One to Andrews Air Force Base near 6 p.m. (EST) was televised live, and it was a shocking scene for many observers. Jacqueline Kennedy deplaned wearing the same pink suit she had worn in Dallas, her skirt, jacket, and stockings visibly smeared with her husband’s blood. Throughout the day she had rejected entreaties from those who urged her to change her blood-stained clothing, especially as she stood next to President Johnson during his swearing in. Ignoring a white dress laid out for her on Air Force One, which she expected to wear on the last part of their trip to Austin, she asked herself why she would “want the blood off?” “Let them see what they’ve done,” she later remembered concluding. Now accompanied by Robert Kennedy, who awaited Air Force One’s arrival in Washington, she rode in an ambulance with her husband’s body to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where an autopsy was performed.
In truth, a sense of guilt and responsibility settled quickly upon more than a few Americans within hours of the President’s assassination. Acutely conscious that much attention was focused on Dallas, those who lived in the city expressed particular anguish in letters written on the very day of the assassination. Several anticipated that Texans would be blamed for Kennedy’s murder and expressed sadness at the judgment they expected to be leveled. “Most persons outside the state will bitterly feel that it could only have happened in Texas,” one woman from Midland predicted. Others internalized this expectation and felt terrible remorse. A few Americans imagined that their own actions, or inaction, on the day or night before the President’s death—no matter how small and seemingly unrelated to the tragedy—had caused the murder of the President. “I feel in some way I could have been some what at fault,” one individual explained. “Each night I use to pray for your husband to protect us with God’s help. Last night I stayed late went to bed without saying my prayer. When I heard this about our great leader I was so sorry I did not pray. This I will never do again. God help me.”
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
DALLAS, TEXAS
My dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I have never before written to a Congressman, President or any type of Statesman. In fact, in my thirty some years of living I have never DONE MUCH OF ANYTHING, except vote, toward being an American or making this Country a better place in which to live.
Today, however, my heart is SO HEAVY I feel I must express myself to you. I feel I must tell you how VERY ASHAMED I am to be living in this city. Dallas—a city of cultural background—a city of colleges, schools and supposedly intelligent people. God would that I could move from this place this hour.
I happened to be downtown this noon, and took the time from my work to stand on the street to take a look at a man and woman that I have LOVED for 3 years. I am SO GLAD now that I did, for never in my life have I admired and respected a man more than I did (and do) JOHN F. KENNEDY. In my opinion, he was the most outstanding individual that this Country has been able to produce in hundreds of years.
All of this means nothing to you now, I am sure of that, but my dear lady—I was moved to tell you that there are of us in this terrible city of ours who LOVED your husband very much. We have cried (literally) bitter tears over this day. May God forgive those who brought this shame to our city—to our Country.
I would like to extend to you, Mr. Kennedy’s family, your family the most sincere and heart-felt sorrow that is felt by me, my Mother, and many thousands of others in this hour. I only wish it were possible for a humble, small person such as I to bring this message of sympathy to you in person. Of course this is not possible, but I pray that my letter DOES reach you personally.
Most Sincerely Yours,
Robert L. Wood
DENTON,
TEXAS
1:10 P.M.
NOV. 22, 1963
From a student of North Texas State University
The radio sat in the window of the second floor dorm window blaring out the sad news that our President had been shot! People walking around in twos and threes stopped their happy chattering and stood silently on the street, waiting—listening—wondering—praying. It was a beautiful fall day—it was almost like spring—so balmy and lovely was the day, but a glum palor hung over the campus of NTSU. Cars drove slowly by, some stopped to listen, classes were excused, all activity on NTSU campus halted as we waited. We had thoughts only of our President. All Texans are ashamed of Dallas. God help our President.
He is dead! God receive his soul.
Mrs. Kennedy, I love you and I will pray for you.
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
LOWRY AIR FORCE BASE
COLORDA
Dear Mrs. Kennedy
I know this is a time of great stress to you and your family.
I do ask of you to for give my poor attempt of expression.
I am an airman receiving training at Lowry Air Force Base, Colorda. I have served under your husband for four mounth before this tragic happening. The men in my Barracks feel as I do of you and your late husband.
At the news of his death there was a emence silance through out the barracks everyone was sick in side. This sickness was noticable in everyone upon this base. The sickness ranged amoung airmen and officers alike. All showing the stress of the happening.
Mrs Kennedy, the reason I feel that I sould write is because the happenings of today is thirty miles from my home. I feel great stress up on myself it being so close to my home. It has made a great impression that will last my life time.
I feel If I could be a portion of the man your husband was I would thank God If I could be as fortunate as your husband to have a wife as you, to be able to stand by me and give me strength and willingness that is needed by a man to be able to make the decision of life, love and happiness of millions of Americans. I would be the greatest man that has come along in many years.
You mean as much, as he did. Mrs Kennedy now you stand strong an pure in the eyes of American and God. upon you you have a strength that many men would give everything they have to possest it. I admire your great strength in time of stress and pray to God it will be as easy as possible upon you and your Family. I pray to God your strength will stand as a simbole to American women.
God be with us that we can make of this country what your husband wished it to be. Our prayers are with you and your family.
Mrs Kennedy as myself speeking for everyone in my Barracks and upon Lowry Air Force Base. Through the President John F. Kennedy this country is untied in God to form a strong and better union that will resist communism and all opression that is brought agest it. Through the love of God and my country I write my most Greaving letter of the most Great man who ever lived.
Airman third class
Kenneth R. Wiggs Jr.
Lowry Air Force Base
YOUTH FOR
KENNEDY-JOHNSON
AUSTIN, TEXAS 78723
NOVEMBER 25, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
There are no words in any language to express truly our grief and the sympathy we wish to extend to you and your family on the death of your husband, the President—our President. We Texans pride ourselves in our state, and that such a perverted act would happen here doubles the weight of grief in our hearts. We in the organization have our own personal sorrows, too, for we hold a seemingly stronger bond to Mr. Kennedy than others.
Here in Texas—here in our city the sunsets are blood red and the streets flow with tears. The only sound heard is that of crystal silence, rippled occasionally by a single bell that tolls a solemn requiem for our President John F. Kennedy. Our prayers are with you, your small children, and the other members of your family, and also the deepest hope that somewhere in your private heart you can find that enabling you to forgive the twisted mind, to forgive Texas, and to forgive us, the nation.
EL PASO, TEXAS DEC. 8, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I am but a humble postman and I realize the many letters you have received, which is but deserving to you, throughout this wide world. We at our house have continued to mourn the great loss to all of us, we are my wife and I and our four children, our youngest boy also three as yours. President Kennedy was adored in our house by all of us here and the small glimpse we saw of him in June when he visited here, shall always be remembered. We were still new here in El Paso and we saw the great love people here hath for him. We were both of the same age, I too having been born in 1917, we both were in the South Pacific area during the last war, but I was no hero as for him. We both married in 1953 and my wife is the same age as you are, we were married in Mexico City. We are also Catholics and had four children, two boys and two girls of which God was so good to us. I am not ashamed to say how terrible we all felt at this tragedy and even my five year old girl cried that day.
So our heart goes out to you and your very dear children for always. We will continue to admire your courage in the face of it all and continue to admire the great love President Kennedy had for the world. Please try to find it in your heart that we Texans of Mexican descent had a great love for all of you. We do hope that you will not think all of us Texans were bad, there is bad in every sort of people as you well know.
We will continue to pray for you and your family in the days and years to come.
May God bless all of you.
Yours most sincerely,
Henry Gonzales
P.S. Being a stamp collector, do sincerely hope the new stamp in memory of your husband will do him justice.
DALLAS,
TEXAS
FEB. 7, 1964
MRS. JOHN F.
KENNEDY
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I have tried many times to put into words, my deep sorrow at the tragic passing of President John F. Kennedy. There are no adequate words, but I want to express my deep regret to you.
I feel sure, you have received many letters from Dallas. I know of the shock, horror, and following grief that took place here. We have not, and will never forget that he was cowardly and visciously taken from us here in our town. I know it is hard to understand in the rest of the nation, but I believe our grief is greater. It would have to be endured to be understood. God help us that it might never again happen to one so defenseless, but without fear.
Not all Dallas agrees politically. But many, many Dallasites were loyal and devoted supporters of President Kennedy. Those who did not agree always, respected and admired his great intellect and courage. He was our President.
I, cannot now, visit his resting place, but I pass the place he left us often, and each time, I say a prayer of thanks for what he did for our Nation, and a prayer that you and your children may walk in the shelter of God’s love, and that time will stop the hurt, and bring you peace and happiness.
BROOKLYN, N. Y. JAN. 14, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I have wanted somehow to express my heartfelt sympathy to you.
I realize that sheer words may not be sufficient, and yet, this is the very way your husband has endeared himself to all his people. Words, which while he lived expressed his deepest convictions. Words that now will always be remembered in all who heard them, and for the future generations, in history’s pages.
Your grief was shared wholely by myself and my family.
I am a patriotic person, but not until President Kennedy’s death, did I own a large flag to fly.
I burnt a candle in his memory when you lit the “Eternal Light.”
I admire you as a woman, mother and first lady of our land. I, fervently hope the future may possibly bring so fine and great a lady to your position again. I doubt though that two such gracious people could possibly live in my time.
My greatest dedication to your husband, is my personal keeping of all the events occurring from that infamous day on. Even though I have a son, I have begun a scrap book with a dedication to my young 6 year old daughter, Lorraine, for a peculiar event occurred on Nov. 22nd.
The dedication reads as follows:
“I dedicate this collection to my 6 year old daughter, Lorraine, for the ironic and coincidental question she posed to me on this day November 22nd, 1963.
On the way to school at 12:30 P.M., she looked up at the school flag and asked, “Mommy, when do we keep the flag at half mast?” I, in turn, explained when. She then said, “That means even when President Kennedy dies?…
I need not explain further, the eerie feeling that befell me later that day, when the news was out. Also the child’s reaction was terrible. She, poor thing, felt responsible because of her question.
Closing this letter will not close my memory or any good citizens’. Close it I must, with the hope that “God,” may smooth the future way for you and your children and keep you all from further personal grief.
My deepest Sentiments,
Sincerely,
Mrs. G. Katzberg
With Saturday’s first dawn, newspapers published in bold headlines accounts of an event that virtually no sentient person in the United States was unaware of. “KENNEDY IS KILLED BY SNIPER AS HE RIDES IN CAR IN DALLAS; JOHNSON SWORN IN ON PLANE,” reported the New York Times. “KENNEDY SLAIN ON DALLAS STREET,” read the banner in the Dallas Morning News the day after the assassination. Mrs. Kennedy had returned at 4:30 Saturday morning to the White House with President Kennedy’s coffin. It now lay on a catafalque, a replica of the one used after Lincoln’s assassination, in the East Room. Preparations for a historic state funeral had already begun. Contrary to subsequently published accounts, Mrs. Kennedy did not singlehandedly direct these arrangements but made decisions that needed to be made along with Robert Kennedy, close advisers to the President, White House staff, and military personnel.
On Sunday, President Kennedy’s body was to be moved to the Capitol Rotunda by a horse-drawn caisson. Americans who watched their televisions that morning, awaiting the solemn journey, first witnessed Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby murder Lee Harvey Oswald on live television. The event seemed utterly surreal and almost too much to absorb for those still reeling from Kennedy’s assassination less than forty-eight hours earlier.
Meanwhile, many other Americans had embarked on a pilgrimage to the nation’s capital. Huge crowds stood alongside Pennsylvania Avenue watching in near silence on Sunday afternoon as the caisson bearing President Kennedy’s body moved down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House toward the Capitol. Followed by a riderless horse, and a procession of cars bearing the Kennedy family, President Johnson, and other officials, the caisson commanded the attention of onlookers who stared at the flag-draped coffin. Only the sound of mu?ed drums pierced the solemn quiet of the moment. For the rest of the day and into the early hours of the following morning, thousands stood in line, some for ten hours, waiting to file through the Capitol Rotunda to pay their respects to the slain President. All through the night, the slow procession continued until the doors were closed at 9:00 a.m. in preparation for the state funeral. Monday was a national day of mourning. Most Americans observed it by watching on television the funeral procession from the Capitol to St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Walking behind the horse-drawn caisson that carried President Kennedy’s body now from the Capitol to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Jacqueline Kennedy and the President’s two brothers led a delegation of mourners that included heads of states and dignitaries from around the globe. Their exposure as they marched seemed an act of defiance, given the reason for their gathering.
The terrible circumstances of John Kennedy’s death, the thirty-four-yearold widow he left behind, the two fatherless children—one celebrating his third birthday the day of his father’s funeral, the other just six years old—made these ceremonies extremely wrenching for many witnesses. Letter writers commented on Mrs. Kennedy’s extraordinary stoicism throughout her husband’s funeral rites, admiring in her a strength they sought and felt they lacked. Her dignity saved the country, some wrote, from the degradation the assassination visited upon it. Her composure and that of her children amazed those who found it difficult to collect themselves. Many described being deeply moved by Caroline Kennedy’s visit to the Rotunda Sunday afternoon with her mother when the President’s daughter knelt by her father’s casket and placed her hand under the flag that covered it. They were likewise touched by John F. Kennedy Jr.’s salute to his father, as the President’s body was removed from St. Matthew’s while a band played “Hail to the Chief” for the thirty-fifth President for the last time. During the burial rite in Arlington Cemetery, Mrs. Kennedy and the Kennedy brothers lit the eternal flame that would mark the President’s grave. The graveside ceremony riveted the nation, carving deep memories into the consciousness of millions who watched these events on television. Some later gathered in their own communities and places of worship to memorialize the President.
In their letters to Mrs. Kennedy, a few families and neighbors of soldiers who participated in Kennedy’s state funeral described their special pride in being part of the solemn and historic occasion. Ironically, one of JFK’s most vexing problems as a candidate—his Roman Catholicism—became a virtue in his death as Americans of all faiths observed the rituals of his church, admiring their sacred splendor. “I have been taught all my life,” one young North Carolinian later wrote to Mrs. Kennedy, “that Catholics were ‘doomed.’ I felt we needed a Christian leader. I realized by watching the funeral over television that our church and people who have judged without really knowing are very wrong. I want you to know that was all I had against him and now that’s gone.”
NOVEMBER 25, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
Yesterday my wife and I went to Washington to pay our respects to the President. We didn’t know what else to do. We stood on Pennsylvania Avenue bathed in sunshine and trying to believe what was happening. We couldn’t do it. It was still unimaginable that a man so much alive could be being borne on a caisson over the same route that he had traveled so triumphantly for his inauguration only two years, ten months, and two days before. The drum beats were so slow, the honor guard so stiff, the change so obvious; it was not real. My mind went back to the 1960 election and I remembered with pleasure how unpopular I was, as one of the four registered Democrats in the town of Essex, Massachusetts, when I went to the polls wearing my oversize Kennedy button and voted for the first time. Among many other things, I will always associate him with the first election in which I was old enough to vote—a moment I had anticipated eagerly for a long, long time. Thinking these thoughts and watching the caisson roll by produced emotions in me that I never knew I had. I remembered him saying in the 1960 campaign: “…The American Presidency demands that the President place himself in the thick of the fight, that he care passionately about the fate of the people he leads, that he be willing to serve them at the risk of incurring their momentary displeasure.” It was a Jeffersonian remark. And it was what the President was doing when he incurred the momentary displeasure of a madman with a mail-order rifle.
For us, the President’s otherwise meaningless death has filled us with a sense of duty—a feeling that when the standard-bearer falls, it behooves everyone to help get the flag up off the ground. Perhaps this is what his death will ultimately prove: that good men still die for their countries, and that we must learn from their deaths to save other good men from the same fate. “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” They are good words in a fine tradition. Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke in the same tradition in his third inaugural address, and his words would have made a fitting scripture lesson in the funeral today:
It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of the Nation, and instruct and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit. That spirit speaks to us in our daily lives in ways often unnoticed, because they seem so obvious. It speaks to us here in the capital of the Nation. It speaks to us through the processes of governing in the sovereignties of forty-eight states. It speaks to us in our counties, in our cities, in our towns, and in our villages. It speaks to us from the other nations of the hemisphere, and from those across the seas—the enslaved, as well as the free. Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story.
A gruesome new chapter in the old, old story was written on November 22. Much of the future depends on what voices we hear and how we choose to hear them. One of the voices we should have listened to more was marked with a broad Boston accent that lent itself to frequent parody rather than rapt attention. Perhaps if we all listen very hard, we can still hear it for awhile.
Blessings on him, and on you and on your children.
SIGMA PHI EPSILON
LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA
MONDAY
25 NOVEMBER 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I know that you will never read this letter personally, but I feel that I must write it anyway. Countless thousands of letters will doubtless be pouring into Washington in the next week expressing the nation’s sympathy and condolences, so this will constitute but an insignificant fraction of this country’s conveyance of an inexpressible feeling of loss.
I am a student at Washington and Lee University, which has a history almost as long as the United States. Two of the university’s past presidents, George Washington and General Robert E. Lee, left in the school an indelible tradition of respect and of honor—respect for men who have contributed to the development of this country and the American way of life, and honor through an unwavering application of a special brand of honesty to one’s own life, coupled with a genuine desire to find the same quality in others.
Having had ingrained in me such a background of personal conduct and reverence for the men who shape American history, I came to Washington to pay my respects to the President this past week-end. Though I have been in Washington several times before, never had I seen such a soletude and feeling of extensive sadness. When the President’s caisson passed before me, there was not a sound to be heard except for the drums and the horses’ hoofs. The smallest children assumed a composure of sobriety I have never before seen in the faces of children, and which I pray I may never have to see again. When I arrived at the Capitol, it seemed as if half the world were waiting in front to pass before their President. When the portable radios in the crowd announced that the President’s asassin had died, no one appeared either happy or unhappy—they remained pensive, for they had thoughts of only one man that afternoon, and he wasn’t in Dallas.
When I saw you and little John and Caroline emerge from the Capitol, I realized that never, Mrs. Kennedy, have I seen a person display such strength and courage as you did that afternoon. After returning to school, I watched television until well into the morning as thousands of Americans filed past their President, and I saw the same looks of disbelieving grief that I had seen in person that afternoon. I said a prayer before going to bed that night, Mrs. Kennedy. That’s something I haven’t done for a long, long time. And I can’t help wondering whether if more Americans had said theirs before, I wouldn’t have had to then…
Most sincerely yours,
Jim Legg, Jr.
ANNAPOLIS
JUNCTION,
MARYLAND
APRIL 22, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I dislike reminding you of the death of your fine husband but there is one phase of the ceremonies and events that I was part of and I have never seen it mentioned in any newspaper or magazine articles or heard it mentioned over radio or TV, and I have read and listened to everything I could concerning the last days in Washington.
My wife and I waited on the north side of Constitution Ave. at the Capitol until the caisson & the procession moved past & turned towards the East front of the Capitol. We were then told the line would form on East Capitol Street. We moved as fast as we could and we still had to go all the way to 9th St. N.E. before getting in the line on East Capitol St. I have read and heard that the line was six abreast. It was at least twelve abreast and sometimes more depending on the width of the sidewalk. The people in line were friendly and respectful. We talked to many from as far North as Maine and as far South as Atlanta, Ga. Most came by rail, bus & automobile. We talked to five young men from Atlanta who had come by plane at a cost of over $100 each for fare alone. Many could not wait to get into the Capitol as they had reservations to return home. Some, after waiting many hours had to leave to catch their transportation home so as to get to work on Monday. All were deeply touched. All of those I talked with said they had made up their minds to vote for Mr. Kennedy for President in 1964 although many had not voted for him the first time in 1960.
Now, the most impressive thing that happened as far as I know has not been commented on by either the press, radio or TV. It is as follows:
A group of people would start singing and when that group had finished a group in the block ahead or behind would either pick up the same refrain or some other one. When that was over a group in my block or several blocks away would sing something else. The songs we sang were: God Bless America—My Country Tis of Thee—America the Beautiful—The Star Spangled Banner—Nearer My God to Thee—Onward Christian Soldiers. There were probably other songs in blocks so far removed from me that I couldn’t hear them.
It was wonderful to be a part of such a spontaneous demonstration of love & respect for our fallen leader. I do not know why this has not been reported unless it was because all phases of news were concentrated in the Capitol and it was a case of not being “able to see the woods for the forest. “I do think that this should be recorded in history and hope you will see that it is. It was cold & windy on East Capitol Street and though people were in line for hours no one complained. Some people were old & crippled and when they got to the Capitol steps they could hardly climb them. I saw a man close to me who carried a three or four year old child on his shoulders for the whole of twelve hours.
From where we were at 9th and East Capitol Streets it took 12 hours to get to the Capitol & through the Rotunda. However, I’m sure the line went out to 17th St. or beyond and then backed up the street one block north of East Capitol. When we came out of the Capitol the line was still forming to go out this street all the way to 17th and then back again on East Capitol towards the Capitol. I think that the number of people who took part in this demonstration of respect & sympathy, on this memorable Sunday was far in excess of the number mentioned in the news, especially considering those that had to leave for home before they go to the Capitol.
I hope I have not bored you with a recount of the happenings on this sad day but I only want history to truly record the way the people felt and acted.
GARDEN CITY, MICHIGAN
NOV. 25, 1963
Dear Mrs Kennedy
In your deepest moments of sorrow I am moved to write this letter. It is a few minutes to 2:00 A.M. (Detroit time) I am watching the multitude of people paying homage and saying their last goodby’s to a great great man. The lines are now five abrest and three miles long, the reporter just said. If a mans greatness and love of man can ever be seen it is seen in the faces of the people who come to pay their respects at a moment like this. I can see sadness, love, sorrow, disbelief, tenderness, and tears in faces of men, women and children of every creed and color.
The respect that is shown to your husband is one that would warm your heart. You can see Catholics, cross themselves and pray, women carring rosaries and praying. You can see old people bow their heads in reverence to a young man, and you see the young people, the future Americans even the young men in the service of their country stop at the casket and give a proud salute to their President.
Mrs. Kennedy, you have been very brave at a time like this. I hope and pray with all my heart and soul that God will give you the courage you will need in the future. I know the prayers of all the people are with you and your children just as mine are now. God Bless you and give you comfort.
Yours with eyes to the future,
Mrs. William Tomashek
FRANKLIN,
KENTUCKY
1-13-64
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I would like to take this opportunity to express our deepest sympathy on behalf of my family. We loved the President as if he were a member of our own family. He was a wonderful young man and we were fortunate to have had him as our leader.
When we heard the news we were deeply shocked along with the rest of the nation. We hardly left the television during the whole thing and we thought you held up wonderfully. We admire you for your great courage.
Our son, who is presently stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington rode in the President’s funeral. His name is Sp. 4. Charles B. Wade and he rode the horse just in front of the President’s body. He said there weren’t many women who could hold up and be as wonderful as you were.
With deepest sympathy for you and your children we say God bless you always.
Charles B. Wade is the
third rider to the rear, closest to President Kennedy's
casket.
Photograph of Charles B. Wade and funeral procession, November 25,
1963, John F. Kennedy Library.
GREENVIEW, ILL
JANUARY 23, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy,
I am enclosing a typewritten copy of a small town newspaper article containing a letter which I thought perhaps you and, or your children at a later date may be interested in. As you will note the letter, as published, was written by a member of our armed forces whose duty it was to help honor your late husband, our great President, at his funeral in Washington, D.C.
I personally know some of Mr. Hendrickson’s relatives but have not informed them of my intentions of forwarding this to your attention. I guess, however, that they would be deeply honored.
All of us in our family were deeply grieved at the death of your late husband and extend to you and your family our deepest belated sympathy.
Yours truly, Melvin Parrish
ATHENS FREE PRESS of Athens, Illinois
Issue of December 6, 1963.
Mike Hendrikson, of Athens, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Eldon Hendrikson of Enumclaw, Washington, formerly of Athens, had a part in the Army’s part of the late President’s funeral and burial rites. Mike is a graduate of the Athens High School and he joined the Service soon after graduation. He is stationed at Ft. Meyer, Arlington, Virginia; and part of his duties consist of being a part of or cooperating in the meeting of foreign dignitaries visiting this country and taking part in other state functions.
We are indebted to his sister, Mrs. Robert Chastain of R.R. 5, Springfield, Illinois for the use of this letter.
Dear Sis and all:
The last time I saw Kennedy close enough to touch was on Veteran’s Day (eleven days prior to the assassination). He laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
On the twenty-second of this month, we were out in the cemetery having funerals. We got back at 2:00 p.m. EST. While we were getting off the bus I noticed there were about 25 or 30 guys standing out in the back, gathered around a radio. I knew something was wrong, so I went over and asked what was going on. One guy turned around and said, “They say our boy Johnnie has been shot, but I didn’t believe it. I ran in and turned my weapon in and went up stairs, got my radio, sat down, and listened. The word came down from Headquarters that we would be on a 72 hour ceremonial alert. So we had to get our dress blues ready and stand by, ready to move.
Saturday, November 23, the whole Battalion went out on parade field and the Battalion Commander read the Presidential Death Order to us—It’s really odd, but it was pouring down rain out there and no one said a word about it, no one seemed to even notice the rain or even the fact that we were all getting soaked. We were not wearing raincoats either. That was about all that happened Saturday except that we stayed around the company on alert.
Then Sunday, November 24th, we had reveille at 6:00 A.M. Then we got orders to move down to the Capitol Building where they were going to move the late President’s body for the people of his nation. I was standing right at the top of the steps where they took the body. C.B.S. news cameras and radio were directly behind me. I could listen and watch at the same time. As the casket came up the steps, Mrs. Kennedy and her two children immediately followed it. Then came the heads of our government. As Mrs. Kennedy reached the top steps she then turned and looked over my shoulder to the cameras. She hesitated on the top step, then gave a faint smile, as to say, “Thank you Americans for the feeling and understanding.” This may sound silly but I got a lump in my throat. After the ceremony we came back.
But this is really a touching part of the whole thing. I was really cold, but people from where I don’t know, came into the rotunda all night until 10:00 A.M., Monday. But as cold as it was they waited in lines nine and ten hours, waiting, shivering, but devoted to seeing their great leader one more time. Also people by the thousands slept in lines, in sleeping bags all night, along the route to Arlington National Cemetery where he would travel the next day at 1:00 p.m. We waited around before we moved into position. Meanwhile I went up to the casket in the Rotunda.
After the ceremony there we left and went to eat, then to the Cemetery. I was posted right below the grave site. We waited down there for about two hours. I think you know that in all ceremonies we stand at either parade rest or at attention. We were standing at parade rest. When the colors and the casket came by me I was so numb I couldn’t complete a present arms! (I couldn’t move).
Oh I wish you could have seen the funeral and heard it also. We could hear them coming across Lincoln Memorial Bridge. Those drums were beating a death March. They were really beautiful.
I guess that’s about all, except for the feeling of the people. Honestly it was enough to bring tears to your eyes. We were watching the people. They were walking along and then suddenly they just fell on their knees and prayed right on the spot, in the streets, along the sidewalks, in parks, everywhere.
People walked around in silence. The city (DC) had normal traffic, but there were no sounds coming from anywhere. It was like a silent movie. It hit all of us here in the Old Guard very hard indeed, but some would joke and laugh to hide their sorrow, while most of us just sat around.
I remember on Veteran’s Day, President Kennedy laid a wreath on the Tomb, and he had Johnnie, Jr. with him. As they rode by us Johnnie, Jr. was crawling on his dad’s lap, saluting us as they passed. Seemed like any other father and son. You should see Jacqueline now, she looks as if she has aged ten years.
I am making a scrap book of it all to keep. This was one of the most proud moments of my life. It’s history, and we all played a part in it. You asked if I could be seen on T.V. Yes, I didn’t know it but while they were taking the casket into and out of the Capitol Building they had cameras directly on me while the U.S. Marine Band played “Hail to the Chief”—which as for a couple of minutes. When I got back to the C.O. some of the N.C.O.s who were watching it on T.V., got after me for moving while the cameras were on me. But we had only been standing there about three and one-half hours at attention.
You should have seen the people. It finally totaled well over a million. The streets were packed thirty or forty deep, and across the bridge they were twenty deep, this was on both sides. Then at the cemetery there were ropes around the grave site about 200 feet all the way around. They were packed all the way about a thousand deep or so.
Countries which I have never heard of before had sent representatives to the funeral. A few of us were talking to the chauffer of the President’s Bubble-top car. He said the Robert Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy, and Edward Kennedy just didn’t seem to realize what had happened. He said that they just didn’t say anything but just sat and stared at nothing.
Well, it is one of the most tragic things that has ever happened in this country, but we, like time can’t stop. One thing before I close while all of this was happening, I wanted to be with my family. It was as though it was one of us. But God knows how hard it hit the people of Washington, D.C.
Would you please keep this letter for me—it’s like a diary for me. Then I can remember how I felt and what I did.
Merry Christmas and God Bless you all.
Love,
Mike
GEORGE C. LODGE
BEVERLY
MASSACHUSETTS
NOV 26, 1963
Dear Jackie:
I know that you are keenly aware of the great shock and sadness which the President’s death brought to this nation; it can only be a pallid reflection of your own. I happened to have been in Washington on that dreadful Friday and wandered aimlessly through the silent streets for hours, part of the tearful, desperate crowd, bewildered by the news, angered, confused, and, most of all, terribly sad and not a little frightened that our nation should have been so senselessly and cruelly deprived of a great leader, which it badly needed.
But what you cannot know so well is the incalculable strength which came to the millions who watched the fortitude of you and your family during the funeral ceremonies. I doubt that ever in history has a nation witnessed such a thoroughly inspiring sequence of events. While they were enriched by the trappings of history and tradition and given meaning by the glory of religion, they were unique in their grandeur by virtue of the very special nobility given to them by you and your children. The great sense of loss cannot be blunted, but what was blind misery and helplessness has become converted into that spirit of confidence, dedication to high purpose and victory which is so beautifully stated in the President’s Inaugural Address.
Nancy joins me in sending you and your children our love and boundless sympathy.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
DEC. 1, 1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
Words cannot express our feelings at this point for our President John F. Kennedy. He was loved by many, hated by some, feared by some, but respected by all. He had many ideas; but with a single thought; to move America forward and make America one unit of people.
We are a Negro family of three (3). I am 31 years of age. My wife is a nurse and we have a three (3) year old son. Last Friday my son Bruce told me (when I came home from work) “Daddy, the President is dead.” I knew that he did not reallize what this meant. But I did and the whole world knew. As big and hard as I am, tears over-flowed and I broke down. I knew that I lost a President and a good friend.
He was a great man and a great President. How-ever, behind every great man there is a great woman. My hat is off to you. You were with him throughout his years on Capital Hill right up to that fateful hour. You have set a standard that no woman could possibly equal. The whole world is proud of you and what you stand for.
I have seen funerals for Presidents, Heads of State, and digniteries, but John F. Kennedy’s funeral was the most fantastic and the most beautiful I have ever witnessed.
President Kennedy was a God sent man, sent for a purpose and he was attempting to complete his task when he was cut down. Even in death his mission is being accomplished.
John F. Kennedy will forever be a burning memory in my heart. May God bless you and may He always keep you as strong as you are.
Sincerely Yours
Mr. & Mrs. Hugh B. Robinson, Jr.
P.S. I am proud to be an American and to have lived under your husband’s administration.
EDGEMONT,
ILLINOIS
NOVEMBER 28/1963
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I wanted to come to the President’s funeral so bad, I felt as if I had lost a brother of my own, and I still do, I intend to see his grave one of these day’s on my vacation, I feel so sorry for John Jr. and Caroline, for I know they miss their father, I really loved the man myself, I feel sorry for you too, Please don’t let Robert or his brother get south of the Mason Dixon for I am afraid for their lives too.
I HOpe you will be able to live your loss down, I don’t think the country will ever be able to.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY
NOV 28/1963
MRS. J KENNEDY AND HER TWO SWEET CHILDREN
Dear Sis
This is a Letter with Grief and Sory From My Bottom of My Heart and Sympathy to you Mrs J Kennedy and Children and the Grief and Sorry for Your Dear Husband Es [Ex] Presedent Mr John Kennedy That Shall Never Be Fargotton By Anbody are the Whole World as the Spirit of All American People of the United States of Amerca
The Spirit That God Gave Es [Ex] Present Mr. John Kennedy of the United States of Amerca. He whas Loved For His Truthful Speres to The Whole World and He tried To Be Friendly to Everdody Poor Peopel to Rich Peopel and Foes and Enemies and He Spoke the Truth from His Bottom of His heat. and He Never Be forgoton By the Whole World. God Have Mercy on him…
I am Happy to write a few lines. I Hope this Letter will Give and your Children a Spirit and We Loved You All God Bless you and the Boy and Girl The world Knows and Sees How You Happy Children acted all through the Performent—What Touges the People Heart—When You Mrs Kennedy and Kneeling at the Coffin of your Husband Mr J Kennedy and your Daughter Kneeling at your side. I notice and the World Sees Your Daughter Touges with Her Gentle Hand the United States of Amerca Flag that Show that She She Loved Her Farther and Bid Him Goodby, and the Boy How He acted Like a Little Man Mrs Jacklin Kennedy and Your Children I Hope you all Be Happy Good Health and Good Luck. And there Is one that We Never Fargit By the World the one We Loved So Well. With His True Stories that Has toughes the Whole World Mr Es [Ex] Preseden John Kennedy. We Clased the Letter with the Best of Love to Mr Jacklin Kennedy and Her two Sweet Children. God Bless You All
We Closed this Letter With Love and Good Spirichal to Mrs J Kennedy and Children—Mrs J Kennedy I thank you for the Letter I got about 6 month ago When I wrote to you. God Bless you all
Yours Rests
Fred Buerman and My Daughter
Mrs Gertude Guidry
And My two Great Great Children
My two Great Great Grand Daughters
there names are Mis Debby N. Krambecht
and Mis Cheryl M. Krambecht
Excuse for Writing theis
My name is Fred Buerman
I am 92 Years old. Had My Legs take off
10 years ago
I Writing In a Wheel Chair
I Was Born Sept 25/1871
God Bless all of You
PHILADELPHIA,
PA.
JANUARY 20, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
It is just about two months since your terrible tragedy occurred and we are a little late in expressing our sorrow to you, but it is heartfelt, nonetheless. We would like to tell you that on the day of your husband’s funeral, our synagogue conducted a most moving service with the Rabbi and the Cantor chanting innumerable Prayers and blessings.
In the Jewish religion, when a father dies, the son must stand and say “Kaddish”—a most meaningful prayer and only permitted by the sons. In our synagogue, West Oak Lane Jewish Community Center, our Rabbi told us that we had all just lost our father, and the entire congregation stood up to say Kaddish.
At the conclusion of the service, the Rabbi and Cantor marched down the aisle Chanting prayers as if following the casket.
Mrs. Kennedy—these words may be added to the tons of condolences you have received and may sound quite repetitious, but none can be more sincere.
May God bless you and your family and may you all live to ripe old ages and have many great joys through one another.
DALLAS, TEXAS
JANUARY 16, 1964
Dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I have put off writing you as long as I can. I have wanted to write for several weeks but hesitated, as I felt the things I would want to say would be like opening an old wound and would hurt you too much. After seeing and hearing you on T.V. last night, and you stated that you only read them as you felt you could bear it, I decided not to delay writing another day.
First, I’d like to extend my deepest and sincerest sympathy for you and your adorable children. Words are really inadequate. I also wish there were ways to express our sympathy to the nation in their loss and also to the world. Nothing to compare will ever effect the globe like this sad tragedy.
That rainy Friday morning I sent a note for my 14 year old son to be excused from school at 10:30 a.m. so that he could come to the parade to see the President. We were so disappointed it was raining. He came downtown and met me and the sun came out brilliantly. We stood on the corner by the fameous Neiman-Marcus Store and waved to you as you drove by. You both looked so happy, you so pretty and he so handsome as the sun glistened on your bright smiles. The crowd seemed delirious with excitement as thousands on the streets and hundreds leaned out windows, in their bright colors, cheering. My son remarked that “Jackie was prettier than her pictures”!—I overheard a little colored boy say with animated enthusiasm, “I was so close to him I could look right down in on his eyes!” My son caught a bus and started back to school.
I thought, “What a moment to remember!” As I walked toward a downtown store for lunch, I was thinking about seeing all of this to night on T.V. and hearing what the President would say to Dallas. Then, two minutes later—Eternity!
You would have known how shocked and stunned Dallas was if you could have seen the people. They were weaping unashamedly both men and women, wringing their hands, some praying aloud and mostly wandering around in a daze, as if they must go somewhere and do something, but did not know where to go or what to do!
I don’t remember how or when I found my way back to my office. Surely there could not have been more despair, nor could it have been more earth shattering if it had been the end of the world!
I personally was in such state of shock, the rest of that day is still almost a blank. I think the thing that brought me back to reality, was the T.V. showing how you exemplified such gallant bravery in everything you did. I shall never forget your standing there for Pres. Johnson to be sworn into office. Truly your actions were queenly, which your husband would have been justly proud.
Of course those next 3 days are to go down in history and generations for years to come will know of those 4 saddest days in 1963, starting here in Dallas.
The two things most heartbreaking and indelible in my mind, was seeing little Carolyn, whom he loved so dearly and we all felt like we knew her well, standing so ladylike and so like a little princess, beside you at the Services in the Rotunda. And never, never will I, or the nation forget that precious little boy grasping the U.S. Flag and running down the steps to take it to “my Daddy!”
If any one moment in time could be recalled, I’m sure that moment, November 22, 1963 would be the one. Be assured many, many more feel deeply concerning this even though they have not written you.
To prove we have no hate or bigotry in our home, my husband and I are Republicans, and our 2 unmarried older sons proclaimed JFK as the pattern of the young and future leaders of America. The older one, at age 23, has already served in the Navy and is in 3rd year college, the other, in college also and eagerly awaiting he service with the Peace Corp, is already signed in and has his official Peace Corp number. We are convinced the young people of our nation has been as hard hit as the adults.
If this will help any, I am a christian and am known to be a truthful woman and would be afraid to write this if it were not the exact words and truth. The day the President was killed, I vowed to God, in my prayers that I would gladly have died, if it could have brought the President back to us.
We pray that as the flame burns magnificently on, that it will in some way burn out the sad and horrible memories you must have of Dallas.
Affectionately and sympathetically,
Mrs. Carroll A. Geist
FROM: STEPHEN J. HANRAHAN 85255
FROM: DECEMBER 2ND 1963 (DATE)
TO: MRS JACQUELINE KENNEDY (NAME)
TO: 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. WASHINGTON, D.C. (ADDRESS)
Dear Mrs Kennedy:
I wish to extend to you and the children my condolences. Children increase the cares of life but they do help to mitigate the remembrance of death.
We are told that a good key is necessary to enter paradise. The President, following the guidelines of his church possessed this key. Heaven it seems, calls its favorites early.
In the President, I felt that I had known a whole man. It is a rare experience but always an illuminating and enobling one. It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage to pay the price.
The lights of the prison have gone out now. In this, the quiet time, I can’t help but feel, that my thoughts and the thoughts of my countrymen will ever reach out to that light on an Arlington hillside for sustenance.
How far that little light throws his beam.
Sincerely
Stephen J. Hanrahan 85255
Federal Penitentiary
Atlanta, Georgia
ROCKVILLE, CONN.
NOVEMBER 28, 1963.
My dear Mrs. Kennedy:
I could not let this week come full circle without expressing deepest sympathy in the great loss of your beloved husband and our beloved President.
Truly, the whole world mourns his passing, and one can only hope that, in some way, your own heartache may be mysteriously lightened by the commiseration of so many who share so strong a sense of personal loss.
The impact is everywhere. You drive down country lanes, on off the beaten track roads, and outside of house after house there is the flag of our country fluttering at half mast. Fellow citizens mourning outside their homes as well as in their hearts. It tugs at the throat, but you go on only to have the next friend encountered inquire: Have you noticed that the ache keeps coming back again and again?
It does, of course, but it is a precious thing this grief he leaves us, for the sorrow now would not be so deep if the joy and pride in him and you had not been so high.
All that he represented, all that he was, his children, his First Lady, and our First Lady ever to be, remains enshrined in our hearts, our memory, our love.
Sincerely,
Leonard F. Rock