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Residents recall thoughts of that fateful day in Dallas
Fifty years ago Friday, Americans of a certain age endured a shared experience that can only be likened to the bombing of Pearl Harbor for an earlier generation or the attacks on 9/11 for a latter one.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Violence broadcast live into our living rooms. Murder, brought to us on grainy, low-def black-and-white TV. Easily the end of our innocence.
Those who were old enough in 1963 to comprehend what had happened and question how the future might be affected have retained excruciating detail of that awful shared experience through all these years.
Listening to the Baby Boomers among us relive those moments in Dallas and the universal suffering that followed, it's apparent that most of them encountered very similar experiences, even down to comparable locations.
Most of them were in school, safely in a classroom or roaming the hallways en route. The majority heard the dire news from a classmate or teacher. Sadly, many first thought it was a joke of some kind. And most tell of spending the rest of the day glued to the TV or radio for the latest news.
For former Putnam Circuit Court Judge Diana LaViolette, "no news event before or since has impacted me as much."
Retired Greencastle teacher Michael Van Rensselaer would agree. "My world changed, right there," he said. "Sorrow and sympathy for people I did not know, sudden violence exploding in my face, and a sense of loss for our country had become real to me for the first time."
"The memories of those days are burned in my mind," DePauw Economics Professor Gary Lemon recalled. "That was so sad, watching John-John saluting his father's coffin."
DePauw Communications Professor Jeff McCall remembers, "We were all stunned, to say the least, and even as fourth-graders, we knew this was an event of tremendous magnitude.
To Greencastle resident Gary Barcus, the reaction was "a palpable feeling of shock and disbelief."
Greencastle businessman and realtor Steve Jones not only recalls where he was standing when he heard the news about JFK, but what he was wearing.
"I had on a new powder blue shirt that day -- funny what we remember," Jones told the Banner Graphic. "That day still affects me. I was 16 and lovin' life. Everything changed overnight."
Indeed it had.
Ivy Tech's Ken Eitel recalls being in high school civics class -- oddly enough -- for the moment that shook the foundation of the American experience.
"As a high school student at the time," Eitel said, "I don't believe I understood the enormity of the moment and how this one event would alter the course of history."
Dave Murray remembers feeling "incredible shock and sadness" that he wouldn't sense again until Nov. 11, 1986.
"I was sick to my stomach that someone had taken our president away from us," Murray said.
"The only other time in my life that I can tell you exactly where I was standing when a major situation broke was when IBM announced it was leaving Greencastle," he added. "Of course, that was a shock of another kind, but having just become the first president of the board of the six-week-old Development Center, that really hit me hard too.
"Isn't that interesting, only two times in my lifetime."
While her future husband was somewhere in his high school on a hall pass when he heard the news, Mayor Sue Murray was home from school in upstate New York with "some kind of virus" that affected her voice.
"I was in bed watching television," she recalled, "when the program was interrupted with the news. I vividly remember looking for my Mom to tell her and not being able to get the news articulated for her to hear. I brought her to the television and we sat for hours watching, tearful, and hoping it wasn't true."
Longtime local resident Ann Newton had perhaps the most unusual experience, being out of the country as the assassination unfolded. She was in Berlin, Germany, with husband Bob and daughter Beth, a third-grader at the time.
"Bob went out to buy breakfast and came back exclaiming, 'Kennedy has been murdered!' We could hardly believe it and hurriedly packed the car, as we had driven through East Germany to get to Berlin and were afraid they would close the border before we could get back," Newton told the Banner Graphic.
"We were worried that it was an international plot," she acknowledged. "The newspapers had huge, three-inch high headlines ... We were so upset, we drove off and left our packed lunch on the sidewalk."
Meanwhile, daughter Beth was insistent the Newtons could not leave Berlin until she had seen Nefertiti. "She was attending an excellent American School in Heidelberg with art history taught that was unbelievably advanced," Ann added. "So we detoured by the Dahlem Museum, rushed in to pacify Beth, and then hurriedly drove back through East Germany.
"We were stopped for over two hours at the border, but were impressed at how sympathetic the guards were and how upset they were also, giving heartfelt condolences. We will never forget it."
Other observations of that infamous day by local residents include:
Steve Jones -- "I was coming out of sixth-period typing class when somebody in the hall yelled 'the president's been shot.' Everyone thought it a joke, of course. Once the bell rang to start seventh period, our principal piped a radio through the PA system -- then it was clearly no joke. School was dismissed immediately."
Cheryl Salman -- "Wow, I'll never forget it, I was in the fifth grade at Ridpath School. Mr. Dixon, our principal, rolled in a TV -- that was a big deal back then. I couldn't imagine why he would bring in a TV, then he made the announcement that the president of the United States had been shot and he turned it on. We all watched in silence. Hard to believe it was 50 years ago."
Michael Van Rensselaer -- "I was in eighth grade, standing at my locker that Friday afternoon, when a girl came by and said that President Kennedy had been shot. I didn't believe her, but then I saw two more girls a ways off crying. By the time I walked home I'd had enough exchanges with other students to convince me it had happened, but it didn't really sink in. It was too far away for me; didn't seem real. That all changed Sunday with the stark images on our black-and-white television, the coffin on the horse-drawn caisson, little Caroline and John Jr. standing beside their mother, holding her hands, Jack Ruby lurching forward to shoot down Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters."
Dave Bohmer -- "I was a junior in high school, sitting outside the office of my guidance counselor when my school put the news on the public address system. I know we listened until it was announced that the president had died. I don't remember much about the rest of the school day, but I recall walking home by myself, delivering papers on my route and being glued to the TV much of that evening. The things that stand out the most are the postponement for a week of the Ohio State-Michigan game on Saturday and watching TV on Sunday morning and seeing Oswald shot live on air."
Ken Eitel -- "I was in civics class at GHS. One of my classmates entered the room, yelling the president had been shot. The initial reaction was for the classmate to sit down because it was not believable. Of course, the announcement was soon made by the principal over the intercom. Fifty years later there are many ways to reflect on the historical and collective impact of the JFK assassination as well as the events of the turbulent '60s and '70s."
Bill Dory -- "I just started kindergarten in 1963. I can remember watching the funeral on our black-and-white TV -- school was canceled that day. Mom was home but my dad was at work at the fire station. Growing up in a Catholic family I knew that my parents and grandmother were very proud of Kennedy as the first Catholic president. Our community was about 90 percent Catholic so the assassination had a big impact. Mass that Sunday was very somber. Somehow I knew something terrible had happened but I didn't fathom the gravity until later as I moved through school."
Jeff McCall -- "I recall that moment very vividly. I was in fourth grade in Miss O'Donnell's class at St. Matthew's grade school in Champaign, Ill. Our principal, Sister Ida, came over the public address and delivered the news in a very somber tone. She asked that we all kneel and pray, which we all did under the direction of our teacher. Given that John Kennedy was the first Catholic president, all Catholic school children had pride in his accomplishment."
Gary Lemon -- "I was a sophomore in high school passing from my typing class to biology when Debbie Cockran -- a student that I was in love with but she was not in love with me -- told me that JFK had been shot. I assumed it was a joke so I said, 'Give me the punch line.' ... Several decades later I was in Dallas for the first time and I was walking around the town not looking for anything when all of a sudden I looked up and I saw an overpass and turned around and there was the School Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll. It looked just like I had remembered it in 1963 (OK, it was now in color and I watched it in back and white). Since then I have visited the museum several times. A very sad time."
Diana LaViolette -- "I was a freshman at Purdue University when Kennedy was shot, emptying the trash actually when my roommate came running down the hall to come and listen to TV in the lounge area. We were glued to the television for the next couple days. I remember being so shocked, calling my folks, asking what is happening, why is it happening, how could this happen? I was pretty impressed with Kennedy. It was because of him that I had planned, after listening to his speech when I was in high school, to join the Peace Corps. And I did, in 1969."
Keith Brackney -- "I was in fourth grade at Jones School. Shirley (his wife) and I were just discussing this while watching one of the programs revisiting the event a few nights ago. I remember the announcement. As I recall, they let us know during class, and if my memory is correct, my teacher started crying. I guess what I remember most -- as a young person pretty sheltered from worries -- was that something had drastically changed. I really didn't understand how much until later in life. When I look back now on all the events during that era, I realize now how good a job my mom and dad did at not showing how worried they were around me."
Darrel Thomas -- "I was a junior in high school (Honey Creek High School, Terre Haute). It was lunch hour and I was sitting in the cafeteria with a table full of friends when one of my classmates came running up to us and said, 'Did you guys know the president has been shot!?' There wasn't much 'schooling' for the rest of the day. We watched Walter Cronkite and the CBS news the rest of the day."
Pat Aikman -- "I was in my office on the second floor of the Ad Building at DePauw, hosting a reporter from The Indianapolis News, Pat Redmond, an old friend. He walked into the office and said to myself and my secretary, Mary Hirt, 'Have you heard that the president was shot?' We hadn't heard. So I rushed over to the Student Union Building and watched the TV reports on the set that was in one of those side lounges. And then I told my guest from Indianapolis goodbye and went back to my office and wondered what was going to happen in the U.S."
Gary Barcus -- "I was in sophomore English class at Charleston High School. Class was interrupted with the announcement. ... That night we watched Walter Cronkite struggle through the terrible news on Channel 3 news. All of us were forever changed that day."