Letters to Jackie (6 page)

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.

Sincerely,
Irene Lowrey
(Mrs. G. C. Lowrey)

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.

Sincerely
Mary South

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.