Locals remember JFK's assassination and legacy

Nov. 22—Today marks an anniversary of an event that forever changed America.

It was 60 years ago today, Nov. 22, 1963 (a Friday), that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dallas.

For those who lived through that fateful day and the days afterward, memories remain vivid.

Rosemary Thomas, 85, of Meadville was a young mother with three little boys at the time.

Her oldest, then age 6, was in first grade at school while the two younger ones were down for naps after lunch when she turned on the TV to watch a soap opera.

"All of a sudden it was interrupted by Walter Cronkite [anchorman of CBS News] saying what had happened," Thomas said. "I could not believe my eyes or my ears."

Everyone was shocked and surprised for days, according to Thomas.

"We just spent the weekend in front of the TV watching in sadness, extreme sadness as history unfolded," she said. "It was just a bad, bad time."

Christopher Thomas (no relation to Rosemary) was a 17-year-old senior at Meadville's high school when he and fellow students heard the news.

"It was sixth-period math class and there was a rumor going around — through the kids — that the president had been shot," said Thomas, 76, a retired Meadville physician. "Stewart Hoffman, our math teacher, was preoccupied. You could tell he was detached."

Thomas, who was a member of the school's band, said the same held true when he went to seventh period for band.

"Mr. ]Paul] McCandless, our band director, was preoccupied, too; then Tom Knorr, the principal, came on over the PA system and said, 'We need to announce the president has been shot and he's dead,'" Thomas said in a quavering voice. "There was just dead silence. Nobody said anything. And then school was dismissed."

The ride on the school bus was quiet and somber as well, according to Thomas.

When Thomas arrived home, he said there his parents were there, "but there wasn't much to say" due to the shock.

"My grandmother was there, too, having stopped by — she was one staunch Republican and she was in tears. I never saw it since," Thomas said.

That evening and the weekend was spent watch events unfold on TV.

"I have vivid memories that [Vice President Lyndon] Johnson had been sworn in. I had confidence in LBJ," Thomas said. "I remember Air Force One landing and Kennedy's casket being lowered with Jackie [first lady Jacqueline Kennedy] beside it.

The presidential funeral, too, left a mark on Thomas.

"The funeral procession was very dramatic," he said. "The riderless horse with boots in backwards very dramatic. Jacqueline Kennedy with her black veil walking with Bobby Kennedy.

"So many leaders of the world in the procession, Charles de Gaulle [president of France] and Haile Selassie [emperor of Ethiopia] walking solemnly together," Thomas continued. "De Gaulle was an imposing figure at 6 feet 6 inches and Selassie is 5 feet 6 inches."

Another memory for Thomas was procession slowly crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

"I was enraptured by the magnitude of the scene," he said.

Susan Armburger, Cochranton's borough manager, was a fifth-grade student at Cochranton Elementary School when the president was slain.

"I remember that day exactly," Armburger said. "For some reason they called us all down into the gym and that when they said he had been killed. We didn't really know what was going on. Everybody else didn't either. No radios on or TV in the school back then."

Armburger said it was really a tense time emotionally.

"When I got home, I remember my mother said, 'I don't know what's going to happen,'" Armburger recalled.

"It was sort of like 9/11 was [in 2001] — they didn't know what might happen. That's why they sent us home," she said.

For both Armburger and Christopher Thomas, John F. Kennedy's presidency represented the hope of a new era.

"I just loved to hear him talk," Armburger said. "She [Jacqueline] presented herself so well. The two little kids were cute as bugs."

"He was inspiring," Thomas said. "He made you feel good things could be done."

However, JFK's death changed that, according to both.

"It made you think — at that age — that something can happen in the blink of an eye and it will change your life forever whether your family or the country as a whole." Armburger said of being an 11-year-old at the time of the assassination.

"Mrs. Seeley, my history teacher, simply said 'He was our Apollo,'" Thomas said of the reference to the ancient Greek god of music, healing, light and prophecy.

Keith Gushard can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.