Letters to Jackie (39 page)

Oglesby, Susie

Susie Hill Oglesby was born in March 1893 to George and Eliza Jane Hill in Athens, Georgia, one of seven children. She married, moved to Tennessee in 1922, and was widowed at a young age, supporting herself as a domestic worker and maid. She died in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in April 1971.

Oldham, Mrs. Helen

Helen Oldham and her husband had seven children and twenty-one grandchildren. She loved watching baseball and was, her grandson reports, “a huge fan of the New York Yankees.” She lived in the Shiloh community in Montgomery County near Clarksville, Tennessee. She was, her grandson notes, a “yellow dog Democrat.” She still lived in the same house when she died in November 1972 that she inhabited when she wrote to Mrs. Kennedy. “She had a picture of President Kennedy above her bed until she died,” her grandson writes. “She had cut it out of the local newspaper, the
Leaf Chronicle
, when he was elected President.
”

Ostby, Janeen

Janeen Ostby and her husband adopted three children and now have two grandchildren. Janeen earned a B.A. in social work in 1980. She retired as a probation officer in Orange County, California, where she explores the arts, paints watercolors, and is currently writing a book about her aunt who was an artist.

Palumbo, Jo-Ann

Jo-Ann Palumbo and her husband own a construction company. They have been married for forty years and have two children and a grandson. Jo-Ann is also an artist who works in oil painting.

Parrish, Melvin

Melvin Parrish was an elementary school teacher for many years in Fancy Prairie, Illinois, and enjoyed history, photography, and gardening.

Parsons, Mrs. Catherine

Catherine Parsons grew up in Shelby, North Carolina, in a mixed-race family. Her parents were white but adopted a Native American child and had an African American foster daughter. Mrs. Parsons attended Winthrop College and earned a degree in social work and journalism. She also held degrees from the University of North Carolina. She taught high school English and history, was very active in community and charitable affairs, and was a staunch supporter of civil rights, especially during the 1960s Greensboro sit-in, in which she was a participant. She died in August 2005, leaving two sons and a large and devoted extended family.

Paul, Mrs. Jerome

Rose Lee Murphy Paul was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1933 and grew up in Batesville, Indiana. Rosie enjoyed foster parenting and had five children of her own. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and lived with it for ten years. She passed away in July 1998 in Batesville, Indiana.

Pinkney, Grace

Grace Pinkney is remembered by her family as “well liked by everyone.” She and her husband, George Pinkney, raised two children, Peggy and George, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She dearly loved her grandchildren but did not live to see them grow up. She died shortly after writing the letter to Mrs. Kennedy. Portraits of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King hung on the wall of her daughter’s home for many years.

Poberezny, Doris

Doris Poberezny moved to Florida in 1965. She became a cosmetologist, motel owner, and a realtor, and had a property management company and a tavern. She moved to Canada, and then back to the United States, where she worked for a large brokerage firm in Detroit. The firm went under, she reports, “on the horrifying day, September 11, 2001.” She was then seventy-three years old.

Pond, Kate

Kate Pond graduated from Cornell in 1978. She earned an M.A. in journalism at the University of Michigan. She spent, she writes, “some years on the crew in the film industry and right now I raise olives trees and cure their fruit in Southern California.”

Pucka, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Pucka died in 1992.

Quan, Mary

Mary Ng Quan’s family describes her as “elfin, magical—like no one anyone has ever met.” They comment that Mary “was the third of ten Chinese brothers and sisters who barely survived the devastating Battle of Manila in the Philippines in 1945 and the first of her family to emigrate to the United States. She embraced this land with the fervor and moral certitude of a patriot. This was due to her upbringing as the product of an American school in Manila established by the Thomasites. It was the only school in the Philippines that accepted not just American kids but also children of other nationalities, a mini-America, if you like. Mary Ng Quan loved life’s little treasures—pausing in daily walks to church to admire the tiny flower on a weed sprouting through a crack in a sidewalk and pausing to pick up a discarded key chain or chat with a cat. She was the master of the unexpected—the wry
remark that cut to the truth and that left her listener howling in delight. She was an editor at McGraw-Hill for many decades, an active volunteer at her local Catholic church, and a beloved sister and aunt. Her brothers and sisters and over twenty nieces and nephews looked forward to her quarterly cards and letters filled with wit, truth, advice, and love. Mary was a good and caring woman who loved her adopted country and took inspiration from both the life and death of her President, John F. Kennedy. In 1991 she moved from New York City to be with family in Chicago and died there in 1995.”

Radell, Kevin

Kevin Radell moved to New York City after doing graduate work at the London School of Economics and Northwestern School of Business. He is an investment banker and a fine art adviser.

Ralston, Frances

Frances J. Ralston was born in February 1911 in Tennessee and was one of twelve children. She married Robert E. Ralston. They had a son and a daughter. Mrs. Ralston died in March 1977 in Middlesboro, Kentucky, at the age of sixty-six.

Rassche, Mrs. Catherine

Catherine Rassche’s nephew remembers his aunt as a “good and caring woman who loved her adopted country and took inspiration from both the life and death of her President, John F. Kennedy. In 1991 she moved from New York City to be with family in Chicago and died there in 1995.”

Ray, Mrs. Whitley, and Larry Jackson

Mrs. Whitley Ray had two sons and a daughter. She was widowed twice. Her son Larry Jackson is now retired as a court administrator and Naval Reserve Commander. His mother died from complications due to breast cancer in 1990.

Rice, Leonard C.

Leonard Rice was born in Nucla, Colorado, in 1918 and moved to California when he was eight years old, where he attended school. He served in the U.S. Navy for twenty years and was discharged as chief boatswain’s mate in 1967. He then became a letter carrier with the Porterville Post Office and retired in 1978. He was the father of seven children, and an avid golfer who enjoyed researching his family history and playing pinochle. His widow notes that “after being sent home from the hospital without any hope, he wrote his own obituary.” He died in 1995.

Rimer, Barbara

Barbara Rimer is the Dean of the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health and Alumni Distinguished Professor. She is a leading scholar, teacher, administrator, and consultant in the field of public health and notes that
“John F. Kennedy’s vision of service to country” has guided her “throughout her public health career.”

Robinson, Ethel M.

Ethel M. Robinson, her family writes, “was born December 7, 1910, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and died in June 1978. She was artistic, wrote poetry, and worked for Western Electric. She and her husband, Samuel, raised two children. She was an avid antique collector and always willing to help anyone in need. Ethel was a strong advocate of education and cultural pursuits, and believed in being self-reliant. She was way ahead of her time in terms of being a strong, independent, hard-working woman. She loved her family and her country, and was very patriotic. The Kennedys were a big focal point of her life and highly revered in her family. When JFK made a campaign stop in Norristown, Ethel, Samuel, and daughter Joan Tolliver all were pleased to have shaken hands with him. She was much loved and is missed by her family.” Her granddaughter adds that “Mrs. Kennedy was such an outstanding role model for me, the women in my family, and our nation…. My grandmother appreciated Jacqueline Kennedy.”

Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh B., Jr.

Hugh Robinson was born and raised in Philadelphia. He was a high school track star and played the violin. He served in the U.S. Navy and was a veteran of the Korean War. A cook by trade, he worked in a Veteran’s Hospital in Pennsylvania. He died in 2001. His wife, Rosa, died three years later. The Robinsons are survived by their son, Bruce.

Rock, Leonard F.

Leonard Rock, who was a victim of polio, ran a magazine subscription service. He died in 1978.

Rosenberg, Martin

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst in 1965, Martin J. Rosenberg went on to earn his Ph.D. in biology at SUNY–Stony Brook. For the next thirty-five years, he served on the faculty of the department of biology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His primary academic interests during this period were herpetology and human anatomy/physiology. Following retirement in 2006, Dr. Rosenberg has worked part-time doing nonmedical care and companionship for the homebound elderly and those in assisted-living facilities. As with many others, he still remembers exactly where he was and what he was doing on November 22, 1963.

Ross, Martha

Martha Ross was born on May 10, 1890, in Georgia. She was a sharecropper and moved north during the 1950s. She married Jessie Ross and settled in New Haven,
Connecticut. Her great-grandson remembers her vividly as a strong and determined woman who was truly a “matriarch
”
to her family. She taught him to read by focusing on the Bible. Martha Ross died on August 6, 1981, in New Haven, at the age of ninety-two, and is survived by her large extended family.

Runnals, Thomas

Thomas Runnals was born of immigrant parents from England. He was raised during the Depression and left college during World War II to join the service. He was able to visit his relatives again when stationed in England. He participated in the Normandy invasion. After the war, Mr. Runnals returned to college on the GI Bill and became a high school chemistry teacher.

Russell, J. E. Y.

J. E. Y. Russell was born in 1888 and had nine siblings. His father was a traveling preacher in Texas. He toured with his father and would sing. He settled down with his wife in Dallas. When his father retired from preaching, they ran a filling station together and a number of other businesses. They raised hogs at one point. Mr. Russell lost everything in the Depression and did whatever he could to earn money and keep his family together. He lived until his late eighties.

Sanders, Donald

Donald Sanders served in Company F of the 43rd Infantry during World War II and fought for three years in the islands of the Pacific, completing his tour of duty when the war ended in 1945. Mr. Sanders and his wife of thirty-three years—Rosanne Bryce Sanders—are both retired from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Mr. Sanders was the head concrete finisher on the grounds, and his wife was a professor in the College of Business. He reports that “he participates regularly in parades honoring WWII veterans and frequently gives talks to students (of all ages) on his experiences in the Pacific area of the War.”

Schechter, Jean

Jean Schechter; her husband, Philip; and her small daughter, Barbara, survived the Nazi occupation of Poland. She is featured in the book
Heroes of the Holocaust.
Her daughter reports that Mrs. Schechter never lost her affection for President Kennedy.

Schwen, Marcia

Marcia Schwen was a nineteen-year-old student at Gustavus Adolphus College when she studied in Mexico on a Carnegie Foundation grant and a first-year teacher at Long Island Lutheran High School in New York when President Kennedy was assassinated. She has served as an award-winning editor of several community newspapers in New York and Rhode Island, as well as an editor of Amnesty International USA
publications. A mother and grandmother, she lives in Snug Harbor, Rhode Island. She is still close to the family from Guadalajara she mentioned in the letter.

Scott, Mrs. E.

Violet Phinisse Scott was born on May 22, 1922, and lived in Mississippi, Iowa, Michigan, and Washington. Her daughter describes her as a “loving wife and mother who was a positive thinker, a wonderful hostess, and a great cook, and someone who loved her country.” She made “anybody smile and feel joy and peace.” Her husband, Elisha Scott Jr., was an African American attorney in Flint, Michigan, the son and brother of the attorneys in Topeka, Kansas, who played a major role in the
Brown v. Board of Education
landmark lawsuit. She was married twice, to Carl Ross and Elisha Scott Jr., by whom she had three children, Michael Ross, Tonya, and Elisha Roy Scott. She died on February 28, 1981, in Seattle at the age of fifty-eight.

Seiler, Ira

Ira Seiler was a second-year pediatric resident at Georgetown University Hospital on Thanksgiving Day in 1960 when Jacqueline Kennedy was admitted for an emergency caesarian section. When John F. Kennedy Jr. was born, he did not breathe on his own immediately and was intubated by Dr. Seiler. He recalls vividly breathing “air into the lungs of the baby.” JFK Jr. was transferred to the intensive care unit where Dr. Seiler cared for him until his discharge two weeks later. Shortly thereafter Dr. Seiler received a handwritten thank-you note from President-elect Kennedy and in January a registered letter with tickets to various inaugural events, sent at the request of JFK. On January 13, 1961, a special-delivery letter arrived with instructions on how to collect tickets to the inauguration for him and his wife. On the day Kennedy took the oath of office, the Seilers sat on the platform “behind Mrs. Roosevelt and next to Adlai Stevenson.” A few weeks later as he visited a newborn at Georgetown Hospital, Dr. Seiler “mentioned to one of the nurses how impressed I was in receiving all the inaugural invitations. She informed me that she had written to the Inaugural Committee that if I had not been there the baby would have died.” Dr. Seiler is retired from medical practice after a long career and lives in Florida.