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November 22, 1963

As I walked with a friend from an outlying class building at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, another student said, "President Kennedy has been killed," as he passed us. My friend muttered "Yeah, right," and we briefly discussed the improbability of that as we walked on, naively concluding that it was just a sick joke. We were going to the Student Union, at that time of day always noisy with music and the chatter of hundreds of people. Walking though the door was like being hit with a bucket of ice water as his death was so obviously true. The only sounds were a few whispered conversations, the public address system was tuned to a news station, and imprinted on my mind remains the sound of many people crying.

J. B., California

I had just returned from Okinawa and was stationed at Marine Corps Recurit Depot in San Diego. At the the time I heard the news, I was standing in the chow line. Most of us just stood around and didn't what to say. Sad Day.

J.R., California

Working for the state of Washington, I was in another room when a co-worker came bursting in to break the news, "the President's been shot!" We found ourselves looking at each other, then smiling at each other in disbelief as though this could not be true, and must be some sort of sick joke. It took quite awhile for us to recover enough from our shock to join the other workers who were sitting, standing, and walking around stunned, wondering what was next: Was he dead? Was this the beginning of the end of the world?

E.R., Washington (State)

It's funny how clearly that moment comes to mind. Even though I 'm a Republican and didn't vote for President Kennedy, it was as though a member of my own family had been killed and I felt terrible for months afterwards. At the moment the announcement came over the radio, I was working as a dental assistant and returning to a patient with x-rays I had just developed. I remember we were all in shock and disbelief. That was a very sad time for all of America.

H.D., Arizona

It was easy for me to remember 40 years ago when President Kennedy was assassinated. I was working as a railroad station agent and telegraph operator for the Illinois Central Railroad Co. in a small Mississippi town when the telegraph line came alive with the news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Radio and TV sets were not allowed in the workplace. It was a day that will stay with me for my lifetime. The telegraph line has long been replaced with the computer as has the small town depot.

J.S., Mississippi

My family and I were in Tachikawa, Japan. Due ot the International date line, it was early morning, November 23rd. My husband, an early riser, woke me up to listen to Armed Forces Radio announce the assassination of the President. As they described the scene, I recognized the location in Dallas and could not believe it. I graduated from high school in Dallas.

A classmate from Dallas, whose husband was in the Air Force, came to our house to listen to the radio with us. We all wondered what lay in store for those of us overseas, because we woke up to silence. Living three blocks from the end of the runway of a very active base made the silence that much more ominous. There was only one puddle jumper left on base.

I remember two other things: I watched the first live Transpacific television broadcast to Japan, which turned out to be the Kennedy funeral. The satellite which carried the funeral went out of range before the funeral was over so we did not see it all. We listened to the Air Force radio simulcast with Japanese TV. The Air Force announcer did an excellent job under very difficult conditions.

During the period of mourning, Japanese friends and strangers gave us (all Americans there) their condolences on Kennedy's death. Many Japanese had tears in their eyes when they extended condolences to us. Japanese friends marveled about the fact that the U.S. had a peaceful transfer of power with no rioting or other disruptions.

E.D., Texas

I was just finishing up my weekly housecleaning and doing the dusting. I was listening to music on our local Phoenix, Arizona radio station when it was interrupted with the breaking news that President Kennedy had been shot. At that time they didn't know how serious it was, but my reaction was the same: First, horror and disbelief; then denial that this could actually be happening. Finally, the tears hit as we soon learned that he had died. I remember thinking, "Poor Jackie and those little children."

I remember hearing that Jackie refused to change her bloody clothes as she bravely stood beside Lyndon Johnson as he took the oath of office right there in Dallas.

She said that she wanted people to see what had been done to the President. How I admired what a great lady she was on that day.

I remember being glued to the TV for the next few days as events unfolded, then finally, the sad, sad funeral procession with the riderless horse and with little John-John saluting. These are things that are indelibly etched into my mind.

J.C., Arizona

I was a sophomore in high school, walking down a flight of stairs after my last class, ready to ;eave school for the day. The hallways were crowded with students, and I recall hearing snippets of conversations, such as the word "shot" and then "Dallas" and "He was shot." My mother picked a friend of mine and myself up from school that day. When we got in the car, she had the radio on -- which was most unusual -- and we sat there for a few minutes in stunned silence listening to the news. We drove home quietly, riveted on the radio. Later, I joined a group of my friends and we drove aimlessly around town, full of anger and expressing youthful, unworldy, thoughts about what should be done to the person who had killed the President.

The following day, I was watching television while having lunch and saw Lee Harvey Oswald murdered on "live" TV.

As an aside, Kennedy campaigned in our small New England town prior to the 1960 election, and I recall his open Lincoln passing not four feet from me. Our eyes connected for a split second, but I was too afraid to run up to the car and shake his hand -- something that I regretted immediately, as soon as the car passed by.

R.S., Connecticut

I was in my car, with my radio on, enroute to an appointment with my obstetrician. I quickly stopped off at my grandparents' home long enough to tell them to turn on their radio. Our son was born on December 3rd. He will soon be forty year's old.
T.S., Tennessee

I was only 21 years old when President Kennedy was shot. He was the first President that I voted for. I was expecting my second child, born January 23, 1964. My husband's grandmother walked over to my apartment and knocked on the door and said, "Turn the TV on. The President has just been shot." From that moment on, I was glued to the TV for days, absorbing everything that was going on. Like everyone else, I couldn't watch anything other than the sad news of President Kennedy being shot and the funeral, over and over again.

J.G., New Hampsire

I was in the fifth grade in rural, northern Wisconsin. My elementary school -- or grade school, as it was called back then -- had two grades to a classroom, and my class of twelve baby-boomers was the largest in the school's history.

Although I have no memory of the weather, the time, or any other details of that day, I do recall vividly the moment my teacher, Mrs. Hill, broke the news. She was a stern, grim-faced, blue-haired taskmaster with a heart of stone -- or so I thought, until that day.

I don't remember her being summoned from the room, but I do remember her returning. Her face was ashen, and she was trembling. In a hoarse, choked voice, she said, "President Kennedy has been shot," and she burst into tears. She actually sobbed, right out loud. I felt shocked, and oddly afraid and insecure, at seeing her vulnerability revealed for the first -- and only -- time.

Her next words were more telling than I knew, and I would not understand them until many years later. She said: "I don't like the Negroes, but he was a good man." I had no idea what she meant.

My parents, thank God, had the intelligence and common decency to view all people as human beings, and there was not a trace of prejudice displayed in our home toward anyone, ever. In my sheltered, idyllic little world, I never knew there was a difference.

Not until thirteen years later, when I moved to Boston, the heartland of the Kennedy legacy, would I finally begin to understand: There will always be too many Mrs. Hills in the world, and never another President Kennedy.

LB, Boston

I was a junior at the College of St. Teresa (a women's college) in Winona, Minnesota at the time. I was just leaving the lunch room when a fellow classmate at the top of the stairs hollered down that JFK had been shot. My first reaction was disbelief: Nobody did things like that in America! Then, I experienced a gut-churning anxiety as I headed to my dorm where a TV was quickly set up in the living room (these were the days of one television per dorm, not one in every room) and we all sat in front of it for three days in various states of shock and tears. Classes were suspended. It was a very disheartening time of my life.

M.S., Minnesota

I was working in the transformer test department at Federal Pacific Electric Company in Des Plaines, Illinois. My co-worker and I had just run a series of tests on a dozen or so transformers, and I was sitting at my desk calculating the results with my slide rule (that was before high tech). We had a small radio on the desk that played soft music.

Just as I moved the slide rule for the first calculation, the radio interrupted with the announcement that President Kennedy had been shot. I went into shock. My co-worker had stepped out briefly, and when he came back into the test area, I told him President Kennedy had been shot. He grinned as if to say, "You're kidding." In fact, those were his very words.

Of course, all radio stations had switched to the news and there was no more testing that day. Who could concetrate on a slide rule?

The work area of the shop had also become quiet where normally there was a lot of machine noise. Work had virtually come to a halt and you could see sadness on the workers' faces, and a few tears here and there. That was to be expected: Their president had been shot.

F.H, Michigan

I remenber it like it was yesterday. I was living in Chicago at the time. I was in my car at the corner of Devon and Western Avenues, when the announcer broke in to announce that that "The President has been shot." I pulled over to the curb and it wasn't long thereafter that the announcement came that JFK was dead.

Stunned, I parked and called my wife who was unable to talk because of her grief. I went back to my car, listened a little more, and unashamedly started crying, tears and all. The shock was devastating, and will remain with me forever. I was 46 at the time.

H.S., Arizona

On that unforgettable day, a committee of four employees (including me) were at Sunset Hills Country Club for the purpose of making plans for the company's annual Christmas Party. We had completed our party plans and were having a wonderful late lunch when our waiter came to the table and told us of President Kennedy's assassination.

We found the news almost impossible to believe and were in a state of shock to learn of it. Of course, the idea of a Christmas Party faded quickly as we left our lunches and returned to the office.

R.T., Missouri

I was a radio and radar consultant working for Philco under contract to the U.S. Air Force. We had driven to one of our radar sites on Mt. Lemon, just north of Tucson, Arizona, to perform an inspection of the site's capability to carry out air defense -- a very serious matter at the time.

About midday, someone listening to a radio heard that something bad had happened to President Kennedy in Dallas. Everyone on the site immediately clustered around radios and television sets to get the details. As the details came in, we sat in stunned silence. I distinctly remember that that inspection was almost forgotten in the confusion that ensued.

After the initial shock, our military officers became very concerned about who did it, who was behind it, and could it mean other similar incidents would follow -- perhaps even war -- with the USSR. We drove back to Phoenix in utter silence as we listened to developing information.

R.M., Arizona

It was a Friday, and I was in the 3rd grade, and I remember I was wearing my Brownie uniform that day. I even think it was even overcast, or it might have been the mood, just an eerie feeling.

C.P., Georgia

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