Letters to Jackie (22 page)

PHIIIPPI, W. VA.

This is Why I BeIieve John Kennedy Went to Heaven

I was one of the few West Virginians who did not vote for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. My reason was pIain and simpIe. He was a CatthoIic. I was afraid he wouId us e his reIigion in office. When I saw that he did not I was immediateIy sorry that I did not get on the Band-Wagon with the rest of my state and support the greatest president we ever had.

I know many have asked and maybe you have too, “If he was such a great and important man, why did God Iet him die?” Many people are wrong about death. God has no part in death. Since the Garden of Eden the deviI has been the father of death. God is the father of good onIy. In the OId Testament we find that God is abIe to proIong our days if we Iive by certain standards or that we shorten our days by riotous Iiving. But I can think of two reasons why God would want John K ennedy with Him. One is because He is a jeaIous God, and had he stayed here, pe opIe wouId have, and especiaIy the coIored race, worshipped him who was doing so much for and suffering so much for them, and for us poor fOIks. Another reason is, had he stayed here his biIIs would had lesser chance of getting through. Yes, it’s ironic but had he Iived his biIIs would have died, but he died and his biIIs wiII Iive. Yes, the government wiII fight poverty such as we have here in West Virginia, and it wiII fight intoIerence for any human being regardIess of race or coIor. That is Gods way, That was John Kennedy’s way. So great was his Iove of God and so great was his Iove for his neighbor though thousands of miIes of water or Iand separated him from them. Who, but him couId bring the worId together at his death? Who but him couId cause a worId to truIy mourn his passing to To weep openIy, unashamed, Iike only very cIose
reIatives do for a dear Ioved one. OnIy his own famiIy was forced to weep in private.

It was the IoveIiest faII any of us remember I’m sure. We had some of the most beautifuI sunsets. Artist couIdn’t paint them haIf so weII. The President’s face was radiantIy happy. Some said it was because his wife JacqueIine was with him pubIicIy for the first time since her iIIness. That was part of it of course, but it was something deeper. It was an inter-gIow, refIected on his face. The sun was as bright and as warm as summer. The Pres ident’s great Iove for peopIe kept him going back and back again up and down the fence doing the thing he Ioved most, meeting and shaking hands with peopIe. Then with top down bes ide his wife he began his ride down the Main Street of DaIIas. For the President John Kennedy this had been a perfect day. Then instanIy he was with God.

If he had Iaid and suffered, he who had suffered so much aIready, I don’t think his famiIy, our nation or the worId could have stood it. There was onIy one thought to comfort us. Our faIIen hero had feIt no pain.

The IoveIy faII ended as suddenIy as his IoveIy souI. The sun was darkened with sadness, and a determined breeze began to bIow, and the angeIs wept coId and bitter tears. That is why I beIieve John Fitzgerald Kennedy went to heaven.

SuddenIy everthing that had been perfect was im-perfect. The weather was bitter, rain did not cease, the sun refused to shine. The band and JacqueIine stumbIed over frozen cIods, and Taps was sounded offkey by a quivering Iip, and the worId mourned his passing.

______________________

I hope this wiII be a comfort to you, his famiIy. It has heIped me to write to you the things I feeI about John Kennedy. Even though my OId typewriter is beat to pieces and I know it is not perfectly written in any respect.

MerIene Snider

HUBARD NURSING HOME

CHARLESTON, W. VA.

DECEMBER 14, 1963

Dear Mrs Jacqualine Kenedy

After such a long delay I must extend to you and your family my very Deepest sympathy. Wanted to send telegram but not enough money. I have lost many loved ones. but never any thing that has affected me like the loss of my Dear Present. he was the finest Present we have ever had or ever will have. there is no one can ever fill his place. unless it would be a Kenedy. they are the must outsting I have ever known. and you Mrs Kenedy are the bravest person I have ever heard of. no one but you could have stood up as you did through such tragedy. Please kiss little John John and little Careline for me and tell them this is a Grandma that loved their Dear Father as much as they did if that is feasible. I dont think I have ever missed a word he has spoken over the radio, even when he was in Ireland, during and after the Funeral.

now I will tell a little of myself. I am ninetenty one very nerveus and little or no edecetien . at present in nursing home very disatified. I like to have my own little place and will be soon as I can find something the OPA gives very litle. now I want to tell you something very unusal. A friend of mine had a memorial service at the largest Department store here they bought a flat of White lilies of twenty five. then they brought them to me. I gave them a drink every morning and now that the blosoms have faded the lily and foliage is growing and looks as if its going to bloom again. Every one says they have never known any thing like it. its
so
precious to me. now please don’t think think me silly excuse mistakes and pencil as I have no pen

and again please accept my sincery sympathy. and have as nice xmas as is possible after such a terrible tragedy

very truly
Mrs Emma Donnally

GORMONIA, W. VA.
MARCH 17, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy!—

I am just an old Mountain woman that has lived on a farm all her life. I became interested in politics at the tender age of 5 1/2 years old listening to my father a Republican and my maternal grandfather a Democrat debating the pros and cons of Major McKinley and Mr. Bryan a free silver D[emocrat]. Of course I was very young to absorb all they said. I remembered enough to follow me all my life and keep me interested in a presidential election.

When Maj McKinley was assinated I grieved for him the same as a very dear relative.

When Col. Roosevelt took over and made such a good president my “grief ” was over. Out of this all Major McKinley election my father gave me a fine puppie. He paid all of .50 for him. He was, my father always said, one half “Mastiff,” one quarter bull dog and the rest “dad burned shepherd.” He was a huge dog taking after the “Mastiff ” side not fearing man or beast. He was a loveable dog to me a play mate and protector. He was about sixteen years old when he died.

He also gave me a beautiful bay mare for my very own to ride as I pleased. I followed each election with great interest. When women could vote my husband and I went to the polls and voted to the best of our ability.

We were very happy over your husbands election for the presidency and followed his career with great interest and well wishes.

We were very glad when he decided to run for the second term as I truly thought he was the best man regardless of party.

When he left for his speaking engagement with you and party I followed him with great interest. The nite before he was to go to Dallas I dreamed I was with the party and the plane was bombed. There were several explosions. I tried to find the president and they told me they had taken him to the Hospital. That after noon when I turned my
Radio
TV on they said Mr. Kennedy had been shot. I knew that my dream
had come true. Instead of the plane being bombed it was the gun shots I heard.

I have wondered since if I had been a wiser woman could there have been any thing that I could have done to stop him from going to Dallas. I said “No” for that morning I had seen him going out for a “breakfast” speech. I knew he was a man dedicated with a purpose in life. Nothing I or any one else could have stopped him. This was the way that he was to go. His life was a blessing and his going away a benediction to all of us.

I send you and your children my love and symphathy. I hope you will all have a good life.

I never told my son until several days later about this dream. His reply was “Mom if you ever tell this to any one they will think you “crazy”. I have these dreams on several occassions which do come true. I dont claim to portray coming event or to be crazy as my doctor could verify this that I am a very sane person. I told my son I was willing to take a “Lie dector test” to prove that I wasn’t lying. I am shy by nature.

I hope my dear you will fine some fine man who will make a good husband and father to your children. You are to young to live alone.

I lived with one man for 46 yrs. he died and I find life is very lonely. No one has time for an old lady.

May God bless you and yours and may you and children have a long and happy life. I am,

Yours sincerely,
Dora W. Wildesen

J
ohn F. Kennedy was the first American President born in the twentieth century. At forty-three years of age, he was also the youngest man ever elected to lead the country. (At forty-two, Theodore Roosevelt was younger than Kennedy when he assumed the office after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley.) Those facts shaped perceptions of JFK and his administration from the
moment of his inauguration. Eight inches of fresh snow had fallen early in the morning of January 20; the temperature hovered near 22 degrees when Kennedy was sworn in. “Rejoicing in his youth,” one newspaper observed, Kennedy stood without a top coat in his morning suit to take the oath of office. He made a striking contrast to his predecessor—the seventy-year-old Dwight D. Eisenhower. As Kennedy delivered his stirring inaugural address, telling the nation that the “torch has been passed to a new generation,” each breath seemed to etch his promises in the freezing air. “The Inaugural will be recalled and quoted,” it was then predicted, “as long as there are Americans to heed his summons.”

“The new generation,” Kennedy invoked was, of course, the World War II generation. And yet his call to service, his emphasis on change, his high ideals and faith in the future excited many younger Americans. Men and women in their late twenties and thirties, college students, teenagers, and even still younger children of the postwar era claimed John F. Kennedy as “their” President. And when he died, they wondered how to integrate the harsh fact of his brutal assassination with their once exhilarating expectations. As one young man put it, the night of the assassination, “It is the legacy of great men, dead before youth is fully spent, to disturb the foundations of our thoughts. For me Kennedy did just that—he showed me in no uncertain terms that if the ‘good’is at all attainable it can only be through a total commitment of self. To understand the Kennedy experience,” he hazarded, “Americans are going to have to go beyond the examination of events and happenings, and go to a land of ideas and dwell there for awhile. Kennedy’s personality was so strong that he tempered the environment of a nation very quickly…. I inately comprehended a political force speaking to me in a language I could understand. I now feel lonely without it.”

John F. Kennedy delivering his inaugural address, January 20, 1961
President Kennedy delivers his inaugural address, January 20, 1961, United States Army Signal Corps Photograph, John F. Kennedy Library.

BROOKLYN, NY

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

I imagine each person who has written you has expressed his sympathy in his own way, and I must express mine in my own way, which is to tell you how much your husband my president meant to me. It is a selfish way, perhaps, to write a condolence letter, especially in the light of the question of your loss compared with mine. But perhaps I can speak for many.

Many of my generation did not care for politics, because we felt that we could not, through politics, make anything any better. Those ideals which we held sacred were separate from politics and politicians. The frustration at not being able to do anything about these ideals in a direct manner became too much for most of us we chose instead to write poems, study theatre, and argue about foreign movies. Was there trouble
in our community? Poor housing? Unfair taxation? What could we do?

Our parents felt differently they had lived through many great social changes and had seen with their own eyes the affect of the people on politics. But our generation, I am convinced, had lost touch, and was retreating more and more from the field of public service. It was with an innocent heart and an uncaring hand that I placed my very first vote for John F. Kennedy. Presidents were people who at best did not make things worse, but they were
certainly
not idealistic, or even if they were, they were not nearly as free to act out those ideals as was one of the college professors, say, who could boycott because a fellow teacher had been dropped from the school for a belief he held. No indeed, a president might earn our votes, but our respect was reserved for the noble novelist who spoke out for what he believed, and we grew up believing that what very little we could do to make our country more to our liking would not be done through direct action (politics) but through indirect hinting (art of some sort) or, if we were lucky, we might have chance to take part in some public demonstration or other.

How did it happen? How as it that this careless vote became the thing of which most of us will be proudest in our lives? How did he win our respect, which we so carefully guarded, and which we had forbidden any other person in the “field” of public affairs?

What Mr. Kennedy did for me was to show me that a good mind
could
find a way, through direct action, to make things better. At first I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. But then I did. And no professor’s speech, no writer’s “letter to the editor” could compare with the easy way your husband won my faith and changed my thinking, so that from now on I will watch politics with a critical eye, and I myself will not rest until I find a way, however small, to change this country and make it better.

Horror, confusion, and madness are things we all fear and wish to protect our children from. Why, my mother tried to protect us from the horror of my father’s death when I was ten. Now she regrets having tried, for we felt it anyway, and we were ready to mourn and to weep. But she was afraid for us and wanted to shelter us from horror. And death is hor
rible some deaths more horrible than others. All human beings experience the violent disruption caused by death, and to try to coat it with dignity is not right.

I will remember the horror of his death the rest of my life. I will remember his greatness and what he meant to me all my life. The two will live side by side. Neither shall blot out the other. Time will heal the pain of both, but I shall remember them both equally. That is life horror and greatness, and in order to achieve balance we must keep both in mind.

Forgive the severity of this tone, and please accept my most humble sympathy. Words cannot express the depth and quality of the love my friends, my generation and myself feel for both you and the very vivid memory of your husband, whose light shall indeed burn forever in our hearts.

Sincerely yours,
Ellen Diamond