President Kennedy's Assassination

[pesoto74]

This is probably the first major national event that I remember.  I was in second grade at a small Catholic school.  That afternoon I remember the sister who kept house came into the classroom and started whispering to the sister that was our teacher.  I remember our teacher saying something about the President being shot and that we needed to pray for him.  At some point a radio was bought into the classroom and I heard there that the President was dead.  I really can't remember much of my own feelings about this event.  I do remember that the sisters were devasted.  My mother also was very upset when we got home.  I knew that with Kennedy being the first Catholic President that his assassination hit the small mostly Catholic world that I lived in particularly hard. 

The next day my sister stayed home from school because she was sick.  She was watching TV when Jack Ruby shot Oswald.  It may sound sick, but the rest of us kids were jealous that she got to see that.   It seemed like the assassination  was a constant topic of conversation among adults for some time after.  I remember my mother buying a book full of pictures of Kennedy's life and his funeral.  It seems like we were out of school the day of the funeral because I remember watching it. 

For some years afterward I felt, like I think that many others did, that things in this country would have turned out much better if Kennedy had lived.

[Butterfly]

I was a senior at Danville High School at the time.  I remember that they announced over the intercom that the president had been shot.  Later, in study hall, the teacher told us he had died.  I was very emotional as were a lot of the other students.  I don't remember much about the rest of that day, except for a sense of great loss.  I remember watching the funeral.  It was like 9/ll, in that everything on TV was about this event for days.  I think he was a much beloved president and I agree that our country would have been better off if he had lived.

[Guardian Angel]

Friday, November 22, 1963 I had just picked up my oldest son Paul from the morning session of kindergarten at St. Patrick's school.  He and I and his brother Eric aged 2 were in the Green Stamp store across from Meis on Main street.  A customer came in and ask if we had heard that the president had been shot.  I was so upset I left and went home where I was glued to the TV set for days.  I agree that the world would be a different place had he lived.

[pesoto74]

I heard on the radio that today is the anniversary of President Kennedy's Assassination.  I remember how for many years after the assassination that it was hard to forget this anniversary. I was pretty young at the time, however it made a big impression and it seems like the adults talked about it for years afterward.

[Butterfly]

Every year, it still brings back the memories and the sorrow felt by what seemed like the entire world.  How different our country might have been if great men like him and his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King had not been assassinated.

[pesoto74]

I do think that their loss made the so-called conservative movement and all the trouble it has caused possible.

[Ray Nolan]

The day President Kennedy was assassinated.....I was working in the Illinois Bell telephone switching center in Joliet, Illinois.

Before I knew what had happened.....the old (relay analog) system became overloaded and suddenly came to a halt. That meant no dial tone....no calls going out and no calls coming in. I happened to be modifying some equipment in the system and thought maybe I caused the problem. After about ten minutes, the incoming calls started coming in. We were then told "the President has been shot.

About 1:00pm the system locked up again from people using their phones......with the word the President had died. Millions of Americans shed tears that day, including me.

I felt so empty since I had followed his campaign and felt he was someone I looked up to and believed in. In June of 1960, I turned 21 (the legal age for voting at that time). The following November, I was proud to vote for him for President. It would have been interesting to what he would have done about Vietnam and other issues....had he lived.

I had been transferred to the Washington D.C. area in 1964. I moved my family to Roanoke , Virginia and commuted to D.C.
We visited J.F.K's grave on the first anniversary of his death. the grave plot was a simple mound with military hats encircling the eternal flame.

Thirty-five years later, I made a business trip to D.C. and again visited the gravesite. It had changed from what it was back in 1964.

1st pic is the first anniversary of his death.

2nd pic is the current memorial.

[Ray Nolan]

A postcard view 1964.