Week 7 of 2014 - More grade school memories.

Today I am remembering the day that John F. Kennedy was killed.  Everyone remembers what was happening the day that he was shot.  I was in the school office.  I was not feeling real well.  I was running a fever and they were trying to figure out what to do with me.  My parents only had one car.  Dad took it to work so that left Mom home without a car.  Can't come get a sick kid without a car. So the school nurse would usually give you some children's aspirin and after a few minutes they hoped that the fever would go down.  Often they would then have you go back to class for the rest of they day or rest in the nurses office.  If your fever returned when you got home, you stayed home from school the next day.

Janet, Sharon, Grandpa Anderson and Mark - Fall 1963

I was sitting in the chair getting my temperature taken when a news bulletin came squawking over the radio which played continuously in the front office.  "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas!  He is dead. The President is dead." the announcer said.  All the ladies in the office gasped and most began to cry.  Before I knew it, I had tears  too.  I really did not understand what was happening...They were crying so...I was crying...I think that was the first time that happened.

I knew who the president was.  He was the man who lived in the big white house that we saw on TV.  The man with the pretty wife who showed us all the big rooms in the big white house.  She had put a lot of time in having them restored.  They had a special TV program about it and Mom watched it. I remember that.

I really did not know anyone who had died at this stage in my life.  Did not know what it meant or how it felt to lose someone you loved.  The office was quite a bit of chaos for a while.  They left the thermometer in my mouth for so long that my mouth began to hurt and I could not hold it there anymore. So I just took it out and held it for a while but I finally put it on the edge of the desk.  The fact that I was not feeling too good seemed of little importance after the radio announcement.  I just sat in the corner as all the woman talked about  John and Jackie Kennedy.  They kept giving updates on the radio and the information would be relayed to the other offices as news became available. I just remember being the little girl sitting in the corner as all the woman in the office were crying.