V 1 N. 27 Where Were You When President Kennedy Was Shot? November 22, 1963

 

Where Were You When President Kennedy Was Shot?

November  22, 1963

 

            To fellow readers and writers,  I sent out this query  November 22, 2024 on the 61^st anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.  The question was inspired by George Cummins a former member of the US Peace Corps who had contacted his Peace Corps group  Tanzania 5,  about their memories of that day.  So I followed up with a similar question to my former Peace Corps team Tanzania 10, who went to that country at the end of 1965,  already two years after the assassination.  We have travelled on many different paths since 1963 and we’ve been molded and shaped by many events in our lives.    I realize that you have to be about 71 years of age to  answer the question.   On the other end of that spectrum, at about 85 years, our memories though fading still have some indelible marks and interesting tales to tell.  Some only responded to say where they were on the map at the time, but others were  more willing to share memories, thoughts, and opinions.  Volunteers responding also represent Morocco and Sierra Leone, and Colombia.    One respondent  sent the front page story from their college newspaper (Bowling Green State) which I’ve attached at the end of this.  In checking out the papers of that date, I learned of another tragedy on that day that has been  long forgotten,  a nursing home fire in Norwalk,  Ohio where 63 residents died, many held in their beds by restraints.  It reminds me that these things are happening everyday somewhere on the planet.  In refugee camps, in The Congo, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, the Sudan, Mynamar,  Kurdistan, Syria, and many, many other places.  We become immune to terrible news in many instances, but the big events such as JFK,  9-11,  the Challenger, and a very few others tend to be those that link us to shock and sadness.   I hope that if you read some or all of these accounts you will be moved to a few moments of reflection and be able to show a good side of humanity to someone who  needs and deserves it,  maybe even to someone who doesn’t.  It may be one of the few paths on which people and nations can heal.    Thank you so much for sharing your stories. 

 

All names and identities have been removed from the accounts.  

 

George Brose

Vancouver Island, British Columbia

 

1.         Doing my college part-time  job - washing test tubes for the School of Applied Medicine

at UPenn with the radio on - shared the dreadful news with students in a nearby classroom.

 

Last night, I was washing up after some pre-Thanksgiving prep and realised it was 

that fateful day 22 November and had no one nearby to "remember".

2.         I was just leaving class at UC Berkeley and walking back to my apartment at Channing and Shattuck.  Soon after I got in the door, my sister called, and I remember her words, “What are we going to do now?”  She told me JFK had been shot and killed.

Like nearly everyone in the country I spent the next two weeks glued to the TV as the saga unfolded.

3.         I was in my final semester of college (I finished in the fall semester) at Alfred University.  Myers Hall had the chemistry department and modern languages, among other departments at that time.  I was walking out of the building to go to the student union when I saw an elderly lady, a faculty member from modern languages, sobbing while sitting on the steps to the second floor.  Between sobs she reported that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Texas.  I was shocked and very sad, as one who saw Kennedy as “my President,” rather than the "national grandfather” as we saw Eisenhower in those days.  I was in mourning for quite some time after that, and actually visited the White House that winter.  Later I have visited the Kennedy grave site in Arlington National Cemetery several times.  The event remains seared in my memory, and later I was in the same hallway, then as a member of the faculty, when I learned of the Challenger explosion.  Those two memories will remain with me as long as I am alive.

4.         On JFK's assassination date I was a junior in school at U. of Oklahoma.  There were mixed feelings on campus about his death.  I heard one coaching staff member say, “Well, they shot Santa Claus in Dallas”.   I spent the afternoon at the student union watching the only color tv on campus.   One of our tennis players Paul Gregory knew Lee Harvey Oswald,  from his association with the Russian emigre community in Dallas.  He made the mistake of mentioning that and was picked up by some federal agency within hours for questioning.  

 

There have been lots of theories about the assassination.  One of the best I ever heard was by someone who spoke on campus a year or so later from the Bertrand Russell Foundation, but I can't remember his name or tell you what his theory was.  I do remember the hall was packed and he spoke for several hours.  No one left the room believing anything the Warren Commission had proposed after listening to the speaker.

 

5.         I distinctly remember when JFK was shot.  I was in a stall in the

 Michigan State University veterinary large-animal clinic holding a thermometer in the anus of a cow.  

A colleague student yelled down the hallway that "John Kennedy has been shot!!"

For some reason that I do not understand, my thought was that it was "John-John", the son. 

 I guess that my brain automatically shut off the enormity of it actually being the President.

What a horrendous and tragic loss to our country. 

 

6.         I was on my way home from Peace Corps assignment in India. Staying at a Youth hostel in West Berlin eating breakfast with some Americans. A German girl stood at our table and said President Kennedy was killed. We did not react.  Kept on talking and eating. She stood and said what is wrong with you Americans? Don’t you care about your president? She repeated that he was Killed. We really did not comprehend what she first said. We apologized her and realized what she said. Of course our lives were changed that day  

 

7.         When I got to Tanzania, with the Peace Corps ,I was sent to Mwanza by myself. Eventually they gave me a Danish volunteer as a roommate. His take on JFK's death was completely different than mine. After reading that famous (Warren) report our government published, I thought the "lone gun man theory" was correct-yes I was naive. He said that most Europeans thought the report was a coverup. He was shocked that Americans were so easily taken in. Do you think we'll ever know what happened?

8.       Northwestern University campus sitting in the library getting ready for afternoon seminar, suddenly hearing a low murmur of voices all around me in a space usually dead quiet in the morning.

 

9.       At St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England, for a concert (age 16).

 

10.     I was on my way home from Peace Corps assignment in India. Staying at a. Youth hostel in West Berlin eating breakfast with some Americans. A German girl stood at our table and said President Kennedy was killed. We did not react.Kept on talking and eating. She stood and said what is wrong with you Americans? Don’t you care about your president? She repeated that he was. Killed. We really did not comprehend what she first said. We apologized her and realized what she said. Of course our lives were changed that day  

11.       I was walking to class at the University of Arizona when I heard people talking about Kennedy being shot . I couldn’t believe this was true.  As  I was rushing to my dorm so I could watch the news, I heard someone say, “I wonder what this will do to Goldwater’s chances.”  I was shocked by the news and angry about the reaction I had heard. The world suddenly felt less safe and the partisan response made it much worse. Looking back, it was a preview of today’s world.

 

 

12.       We were both in our senior year in high school. I was in Detroit Michigan sitting at a desk in my classroom at Benedictine High School when there was an announcement over the overhead speaker. 

B. said all the classes were sent  back to their homerooms at Chaminade high in Dayton Ohio and an announcement was made over the speaker.  

Hard to believe - 61 years ago   

 

13.     I was in bed in my Bachelors' Offices Quarters (BOQ) room in Okinawa.  I heard it on the radio.  I was an ROTC lieutenant in the Military Police.

 

14.     I was still in my first few months in the Peace Corps in Casablanca, Morocco. My roommate and I were returning to our apartment late in the evening after a long day when one of our young neighbours stopped us on the street, saying, "Your president has been shot." My roommate & I looked at each other and asked, "What is he talking about?" The young man touched his chest  and said, "I am sorry,' before walking away. Neither of us understood what he meant. There were no computers, mobile phones, etc. at that time. We had no quick contacts from home. We left our apartment the next morning, giving no thought about what the kid told us, only to find a long line of our neighbors waiting to shake our hands to express their sorrow for us. We were totally stunned and bewildered, But we were given several newspapers confirming the current details. The rest of the day, at work and our other activities continued the like that. The memory of that day has stayed with me forever.

 

 

15.     Stanford University.

 

16.     I was in a class at college when someone ran through the halls telling each class what had happened.  Everyone immediately scattered back to their dorms.  The whole dorm spent the next few days clued to the TV in the living room.  Our campus had a small lake and when people took a break from the TV, they walked around that lake.  I had met Kennedy over a year before and intended to go into the Peace Corps.  It was hard to think that all that hope was gone.

 

 

17.      I was in my junior year at Washington & Lee in Lexington, VA. I believe I was playing handball about the time JFK was shot so was a little behind in hearing about it.

I don't recall any great sorrow, more just a numbness. I can't remember if I was a real fan of JFK. Although my dad was a a union man and described himself as a "yellow-dog" democrat I may have been partial to Nixon in 1960 since that was the choice of many friends and JFK was a Catholic and suspect to my Baptist faith.

I had just returned from a summer in East Africa where I worked in a Baptist Secondary School in Mombasa and also visited Zanibar for a few hours, Dar for a week where I had to preach in a "revival" and also climbed Kilimanjaro from the Marangu Hotel with a group of Brit school boys and two parents. (The mother parent and I were only ones to suceed in getting to Gilman's Point.)

That summer's experience was still being processed but had a definite liberalizing impact

In any event I was a dorm counselor in the freshman dorm that year and  one of my charges was a kid from Staunton, only about thirty miles away. He decided to get a car from his home and invited me to drive up to Washington for the funeral on Tuesday. It must  have been a three hour drive since I just checked Google maps and DC is 190 miles way  from Lexington.

We must have gotten there in early moring and proceeded to park the car and look for a place to see the procession from the Capitol to the Church. I don't remember exactly what we saw. It passed very quickly. I don't remember seeing anyone I recognized in the large group of family, but I do remember picking out Haile Selassi, Prince Philip and maybe Charles DeGaulle from the large group of world leaders who attended and walked. We left afterwards since attendees of the burial in Arlington Cemetary were taken there by car.

I gradually became much more political at W&L espousing Democratic leaders. Students at W&L were incredibly conservative at this time.  All men and all white, plus heavily fraternity. All worshiped Lee. It wasn't enough to be a member of the Young Republicans; there was also a Conservative Society. We liberals were vastly outnumbered but managed to hold on to the student newspaper and make voices heard. In the 1964 election the student body favored Goldwater by about 4 to 1 but faculty was 80% for Johnson. We liberals managed to keep Johnson posters up. Students were generally shocked by Johnson's massacre of Goldwater.  

I had an especially interesting experience at a Conservative Society lecture. A Vice-Counsul or something similar. from South Africa was invited to speak and he gave a glowing report on the South African apartheid goverment. During the question & answer period I asked him why Albert Luthuli, a Nobel Peace Prize winner was imprisoned on an off shore island without any hope of release. He said he was a criminal and besides we all knew from Martin Luther King's award that a Nobel Peace Prize meant nothing. Loud applause. 

Btw I was in Dar during my third year when word came that Robert Kennedy had been shot. A bunch of Americans gathered around a teletype machine in the Kilimanjaro Hotel late into the night until word came that he was dead. One of the persons there was an American black who was a sort of well known refugee from the USA. He was interesting to talk with. No memory of his name.

 

 

18.     I was a college student at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green Ohio.

I was shopping in downtown Bowling Green when the news hit and spread like wildfire.

Walter Cronkite reported that evening near tears. It was a shocking nightmare.

 

I saved the college newspaper, the B-G News when it next came out on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1963 and have attached it. I hope you can read it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those not too exhausted,  here is the front page of the Norwalk Reflector Herald  in Ohio about that nursing home fire story.   Probably the only newspaper in the country with a headline above the assassination. 

 

 

 

 

 George,

I was walking across campus at Capital University when I heard he had been shot.  Later that night, several of my fraternity brothers and I decided to go to the funeral.  One of my frat brothers was Richard Nye whose father was Senator Gerald Nye.  Senator Nye took us over to the Capitol building and took us on a senator-only elevator up to the rotunda where his casket was.  The guards stopped the line that was hours long so we could go in and walk by the casket.  The next day we stood along the road and watched the parade to Arlington.

It was a very memorable experience.

Chuck H

 George,

I was in 9th Grade English Class at Campbell Hall in North Hollywood, California when I heard about President Kennedy's assassination.  Our English teacher, Mrs Senter, broke the news to us just as we were beginning class.  Most of us were speechless, although one of the girls broke down at the news.  As you might imagine, not much got done that afternoon.  After I got home and watched the news with my parents, I recall my dad observing how convenient it was for Lyndon Johnson, whom he disliked.

Campbell Hall was a private school connected with St. David's Episcopal Church, also in North Hollywood.  Alec Campbell, the church rector, and his brother Richard "Dick" Campbell, a banker, were the principal factors.  They were Canadians who had emigrated to the United States from British Columbia and had become US citizens.  Dick had served in the Canadian Army during World War II and was also the head scoutmaster for BSA Troop 139, attached to St. David's Parish.  He and I shared an interest in history, so we often had detailed discussions about the two world wars and British Empire history.  I began my athletic career in 8th Grade at Campbell Hall as a soccer halfback of modest ability.   My ball control was average but I had good endurance and a fair turn of speed.  In the spring of 1963 the school held an intramural track and field meet.  The track was a 220-yard oval chalked out on the school's athletic field.  I won the 600-yard run in 1:23.0 and the 440-yard dash in 57.5 and so discovered my athletic calling.  At the time, the 600-yard run was part of President Kennedy's national youth fitness program.  

Jim

 Nice

Ned

 

I was in grade 6 and while walking to school, I heard the news. Because people were so shocked, I knew that this was a really big deal. I can still remember the feeling in my stomach the news gave me.   Laurel