I was four and a half and remember the fall of 1963 very well as we had gone east shortly before my Uncle Bill died at 28 during a very early open heart surgery in Montreal. We were back home in Edmonton and while I do not remember the news flash, I remember my Mother being very upset, between losing her brother and now this, and my father coming home from work. The TV set was on all weekend and I suspect much of Canada came to a halt during the funeral. I do remember MLK Jr and RFK's passing a lot better.

When I was a freshman in high school, the Hale family of my ward, parents and five kids, were in a head-on collision while on a trip to Utah. The oldest, a girl, was also a freshman. The parents and three of the kids, including my classmate, died. It was my first brush with death, up close and personal. The funeral was HUGE, and very, very somber.

My second brush with 'big' death was President Kennedy; it paled in comparison.

Yes I remember it. 2nd or 3rd grade. The teacher was called into the hallway, which was very weird because you NEVER leave a class of kids that age (in Utah so a huge class of at least 35) alone. She came back in crying very hard. We could barely understand her when she said "the President has been shot and school is closed; go home." At that time they didn't know that he had died.
Since we were at school when the news came in, none of the kids knew what president she meant so we put the news with some school thing. Some of us thought she meant the pres. of the PTA (I know, weird huh....but nobody though it would be the POTUS).
My friend and I told the teacher that we can't go home because our moms were at work. But when we went outside of the school, both of our moms were in the car together crying.
We watched TV for days it seemed like and school was closed. I remember watching the kids walking behind the hearse and I was crying and crying. Kids that young didn't understand the full impact of course but those kids walking behind the hearse was so awful. I felt so sorry for them because it was their daddy.

My parents acted real weird and were crying a lot during the Cuban Missile Crisis which I knew nothing about. Even if they had told me, I would not have known anything about it. After the assassination, (for some reason) I thought that my parents would suddenly stop crying like they did before and things would be OK again. But that didn't happen.....

(thanks for continuing, original thread closed)

I was just short of 4 years old. I honestly don't remember the day he was shot.

I *do* remember the funeral. I sat on my great-grandmother's lap, watching it on black & white TV. Great-grandma and grandpa lived on the other side of a duplex we owned in Salt Lake City (3535 Alta Vista, Mill Creek area). I remember clearly sitting on her lap, watching the funeral procession live on TV. Grandma was crying. I remember her telling me she was sad because "bad men killed the president." I remember crying, too -- not because of the president, but because my grandma was so sad.

I was in 5th grade. We were exercising with Jack laLane on tv while our teacher did her ironing. (I know, weird right?)

Anyway, Walter Cronkite came on and said the President had been shot. Crazy teacher went crazier. Her son Wally walked in the room (mamas boy to the max), and calmed his mother down. He stayed in class the rest of the day.

Doing Jack LaLanne while your teacher ironed? This is so hilarious!

I was in the 6th grade and my teacher very somberly announced that the president had been shot and dismissed class. We watched the news that evening. My parents hadn't voted for him and I don't remember much discussion at home about it.

I was 11 months old when Kennedy was assassinated, so I always remember how many years it's been since he's been gone because of my age: 52.

Although I don't personally remember that day, my mom told us that my German grandmother had flown to the U.S. to help her during my mom's pregnancy with my sister, while also caring for a baby (me) and a toddler (my brother). Ah, the time before birth control. My grandmother weeped in sadness because she loved Kennedy from the time he gave the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in Germany. My mom and dad loved him too.

Eddie Izzard on what Kennedy REALLY said there in Berlin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mu02xUgE4k

Man, he tells a great story; that made me laugh hard.

My parents told me that "Ich bin Berliner" would've been grammatically correct, but inserting the "ein" in there made Kennedy's speech endearing to Germans. Some experts think the "ein" was correctly placed.

I think the jelly donut story has just been a fun urban legend that's been perpetuated, but I still love hearing the tale.

I was 11 years old and was on the way to my early Saturday morning ballet lesson. Everyone who got on the bus said something to the bus driver about 'the trouble in America" (I am in Australia). I was puzzled but more concerned about getting to ballet. Once there I saw one of the mothers telling my ballet teacher something and hearing her say "Oh how awful, how terrible!". I am not sure when someone told me the US President was dead, in fact had been shot, it took a while for it all to sink in. But I remember being sad for his pretty wife. Of course I have understood its significance since. But on that day, it just seemed there was a feeling of 'unrest' and shock all around, but I was a bit young to 'get it'.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2015 04:00PM by fluhist.

I was in first grade and just come home for lunch (school was only a block away). I made a sandwich and turned on the TV to one of our five channels, which happened to be CBS. I watched and listened to Walter Cronkite make the announcement. Being just 6-years-old I knew it was a big deal, just not how big a deal. We listened to the radio in class for the rest of the school day.
I also very clearly remember not going to church that Sunday morning and watching Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live TV. (At least I think it was live-it was a long time ago!)

Why is this date more important than the dates Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley were assassinated?

Or maybe I misread this post

Did someone say it's more important? I think it gets more recognition because many people alive today remember it well.

I'm going to offer a possible reason why the assassination of JFK is so important: Perhaps if JFK had completed his term in office there may have been a change in US policy about Vietnam. He might have increased US involvement in Southeast Asia, but he may well have decreased it. What we do know for sure is that his successor dramatically increased it.
We will never know. Its a very debatable point. But it is possible that Americans may not have died in the thousands in Vietnam if the events of November 22, 1963 had not taken place.
It is also possible that the events of June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles had a profound effect on the prosecution of the Vietnam War. It is quite possible that RFK would have won the 1968 election and changed the course of the war. Richard Nixon indicated many years later that he would not have run against another Kennedy.
Who knows how important these events are? I don't believe that they are insignificant. The death of a president in office is very serious business (obviously).

I was 13 years old and in 7th grade. We were having a school dance. It was stopped suddenly and we were called back to class. Bulky black-and-white televisions were wheeled in and we watched. The girls cried. I would have and nearly did, but didn't want to look like a sissy. That's how things were back then. It's more important because I lived through it.

On a more cheerful note, I also witnessed the first man on the moon. I was working at a TV repair shop, so we had a nice color set upon which to see that. Of course, nice color sets back then were pretty shitty compared to HDTV.

Yes, I'm a little old now. The first president I remember is Eisenhower. The first President of TSCC I remember is David O. Mckay.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2015 06:10PM by rationalist01.

The age of some of these folks on here always inspires me. I guess it testifys as to how long and how severe the church grasps a hold on to you. I can only hope Ill look back on my history in 52 years and it be half as interesting as some of you.

Ah, man, too bad!! See, everything worth doing, we've done it!!



j/k. go forth and look for reasons to laugh and before you know it, you'll be a happy old codger, impressing people simply for having survived.

I was 10, and in 5th grade. Yes, that means I'm 62 now! I was putting encyclopedias back on the shelf in my classroom and our superintendent came in and told our teacher. She told our class and we were all saddened but didn't really grasp the enormity of the situation. We spent the next few days watching everything on TV. I can remember that day very clearly. How time flies.

Next June 28,I hope someone asks, 'where were you 102 years ago on this date?'

Now that was an assassination with some real consequences.

Ya would be interesting if anyone remembered that particular assassination. Hopefully every history student of mine remembers. I remember one who used the spelling archduck on the final exam. Loved that.

I was in first grade at Edison Elementary in San Diego when Kennedy came for a visit in June of 1963. His motorcade passed just two blocks from the school, and I don't recall if they emptied us out to see him or if my mom came to take me. But I was there. The only lasting memory is a momentary snapshot of him smiling in my direction as his convertible passed by on El Cajon Blvd.

I have little memory of his actual death. It was an eventful year in our house as my single mom struggled to keep us afloat, and was embarking on a new relationship with the man who would become my dad.

Well I'd hate to wreck the thread by going into the possible reasons JFK was taken out but I do think it highly likely that his son would already be in the white house or at least headed there were it not for his untimely demise.

I'm glad you raise this point, Shummy.

Since the two brothers assassinations, no other Kennedy's have attempted a run for the presidency.

Little brother Edward might have, but stayed with being a Senator, out of the realization that had he ran for president he too would have become a target for assassination.

Why the Kennedys? Too much power in one family not beholden to certain special interests.

JFK Jr was content running his magazine he'd helped found, after his stint at the Manhattan District Attorney's office. He didn't have the same political drive his father did to run for public office, and Jackie didn't instill it in him.

Caroline might have been better presidential candidate material, but she too has kept a lower profile because of her high profile parents, and father's murder. She's content being the matriarch of her home and family, and tending to her parents legacies, while still maintaining her position last I heard as a UN Ambassador to Japan.

"Since the two brothers assassinations, no other Kennedy's have attempted a run for the presidency.

"Little brother Edward might have, but stayed with being a Senator, out of the realization that had he ran for president he too would have become a target for assassination."

Actually, Ted challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980 for the Democratic nomination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy#1980_presidential_campaign

Kennedy's rambling, incoherent responses to questions, as well as issues regarding his personal character arising from his involvement in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, doomed his candidacy. He also considered running in 1984 and 1988, but decided against it.

As I recall it was familial pressure that he decided not to seek that office after his first foiled attempt.

They couldn't afford to lose him. He'd filled in to be a substitute and surrogate dad to some of the other kids whose dads were murdered.

..."faith-promoting" version of why Ted declined to run again after 1980. A more likely reason was the fact that Reagan was very popular, and he won 49 states in 1984. Kennedy wouldn't have wanted to embarrass himself as Walter Mondale did in that election. Kennedy knew that he could ge re-elected in Massachusetts for the rest of his life, so he chose to remain there.

Also, you may remember Ted's shameful attempt to have his long-time marriage to Joan annulled, so that he wouldn't violate his Catholic proscription against divorce. That escapade also lessened his character in the eyes of the public.

Yeah, that all sounds about right, given Reagan's popularity at the time.

All the Kennedy men were serial womanizers though. It didn't stop Bobby or John from getting the votes. Women swooned over those guys like teeney boppers did the Beetles during their hey day.

It was the woman who drowned at Quinnipiec and Kennedy fleeing the scene of the accident to cover for himself that made him look like more of a scoundrel than he really was.

His poor wife Joan was an alcoholic for much of their married life. He had some big shoes to fill, in the shadows of his older brothers.

At the end of the day, he died an honorable person, all things considered.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2015 03:37PM by amyjo.

I was a freshman in college, just got out of class and headed to meet my friend who was a senior in high school. We got together between the time it was reported about the shooting and when it was reported that he was dead.

My friend said a lot of girls were crying at school.

My birthday is April 15, Lincoln's death.
My daughter was born April 4th, MLK's death.
My grand daughter was born November 22nd, JFK.

My father whom I adored) had died of kidney failure (a disease which my son and I have both inherited, but treatment is much better now) less than a year before. So I was still dealing with Dad's death. My mother would not tolerate any form of grieving in the household. (Now, she herself, took to alcohol with a vengeance, but I guess that was different. She was mean when she was sober. She was SCARY when she was drunk.)

I was in high school Journalism class, and we were scrambling as usual to get the weekly edition of the school paper out in time for lunch. I don't remember how we heard the news - whether it came over the PA system or our teacher told us - but it felt like my Dad was dying, all over again.

Because my mother had forbidden any display of grief at home, I had learned to suppress tears. I just felt cold and numb all over. I remember one of my classmates - the photographer for the paper - looking stunned and saying, "But NOBODY shoots the President!" Sorry, Steve, but they did. And it still hurts.

I was a freshman in HS and was in my history class. We had a Canadian teacher, but he clouded up when he read the public statement to us all, brought into us by a runner from the office. At that point Kennedy had only been shot. Within a half hour I was in my next class, and my teacher there read the new report that Kennedy was dead. She began crying. All the girls began crying. A lot of the guys joked about it.

That was my last year there. We moved and I fell in with LDS friends and became active in church. They were all--to a person, best I could tell--John Birchers (very popular among members then), and saw the hand of the Lord in all this and that it was a clear sign that God was coming and Democrats and their kind would be wiped from the earth. Sunday school lessons for the adults were often from Cleon Skousen books, back in the day when you could make your lesson about anything.

About a year later, President Johnson showed up at a local military base, and we all went to hear him speak. My sister remarked how that it should have been Kennedy speaking, and how disappointing that was. We got to go up to the wire and hold out our arms as he came along and shook everyone's hands.

Tenth grade English class. I lived in an overwhelmingly Catholic town. Most students were second generation Americans whose grandparents had immigrated through Ellis Island.

When the announcement was made, two girls in the class cried out in shock/dismay. I remember their names to this day. One went on to be a writer at Ms Magazine for twenty years, and a founder of a Catholic organization for the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood. The other became a math teacher and chief organizer of my 50th HS reunion three months ago. Odd, the people we remember and keep track of.

Nobody joked about it. Not at school, not at LDS church, nobody. I am still shocked when I hear about kids who thought it was in any way, shape or form cause for celebration.

Well as much as I am loathe to repeat it, I do recall hearing cynical TBMs cracking sick jokes, things like 'Jack in the box'.

We were on the playground at school and they rang the bell early and told us to go right to our classrooms. When we got there the teacher was crying. I will never forget that moment--knowing something really bad had happened. Then she told us and everyone started crying. They released all the "walkers" to go home and the rest of us sat in silence and waited for what seemed like hours until the buses got there because all the schools had been released early.

We went home and watched that footage on TV over and over and over and over and over...

Even my dad, who probably hated Kennedy, was somber. I don't remember him saying anything bad (like "the SOB deserved it")like he did when Martin Luther King was shot.

I was feeding my son who had just turned one two days before. seven month later he was killed in a tragic accident so my emotional memories are tied together.

So very sorry for your loss.