John F. Kennedy was shot 50 years ago today. A long-time reader writes:
I thought you guys might be interested in posting this picture of JFK I took in Dallas when I was 13 years old, and the family story surrounding my taking it.
I was born in Dallas into a large extended family of Irish and French Catholics, the third of six kids. My mother and her two sisters were born and raised in Kansas but Dallas-ites since the WWII years. They decided to keep us kids out of school so we could go and see the president. We kids were in Catholic parochial schools, but none of the Catholic schools were let out that day and no one was encouraged to see the Kennedys. This was Dallas, after all: not Kennedy country. Our families belonged to the minority of Democrats, even among Dallas Catholics, who supported Kennedy. Our family political affiliations went back to FDR and the New Deal.
My mother and two aunts picked a spot along Lemmon Avenue, half-way between the airport and downtown. We arrived early. Aunt Terry had the great idea to make a sign, asking the President to stop and shake our hands. We went across the street to buy a role of butcher paper. We spent the next half hour crafting our sign: “PLEASE STOP and SHAKE OUR HANDS, JFK and LBJ in ‘64”. It may have been the end of the cultural 1950s but my mother and aunts were not “out of it” (Ha!). They figured the political plug would help our cause.
It did.
As the motorcade came by, we could see John Kennedy reading our sign. To our great thrill, he beckoned us to come out to the limousine and shake his hand. He must have told the driver to stop because the whole motorcade came to a quick halt. We dropped the sign and ran for the car. The meet-up lasted less than a minute before too many others were streaming in behind us.
John Kennedy was beaming. Jackie turned and smiled her big beautiful smile. My mother, aunts and most of the older kids got in a quick handshake and hello before Secret Service agents ushered us and the gathering crowd back.
I didn’t have a chance to shake Kennedy’s hand. I’d asked if I could bring along our Kodak 8mm Brownie Automatic home movie camera. I took pictures of Airforce I and II, pictures of our sign, and of the motorcade. And then, out in the street, in the press of the crowd against the limousine, I impetuously held up the camera a few feet away from the Kennedys. I took only a few seconds of film before a Secret Service arm gently used his arm to have me lower the camera. We went back to the curb, dizzy with excitement; some of which I got on film too.
Thirty minutes later, just after I’d finished telling my 8th grade classmates about this great adventure, Sister Augustine, our teacher, was called out of the classroom. She returned moments later with a very sad, grim look on her face, and a small B&W TV to watch the breaking news.
My family was so upset and heartbroken – upset too with the attitudes of too many Dallasites – we drove to Austin to spend that long, draining weekend and funeral day at my grandmother’s house.
Here are two stills from the 8mm footage I took that. They show what Life Magazine copy writers in the 1983 commemorative issue, which used the pictures, called, “A Family Memento” and “a last glimpse of a radiant President.” The close-up is likely the last, or one of the very last, close-up photos of Jack Kennedy before he was killed. I thought Dish readers might like to see it and hear about what it was like for some of us that day in Dallas 50 years ago.
The Dish 