Letters to Jackie (30 page)

COLUMBUS, OHIO
MAY 28, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

My name is Patricia Boling. I wanted to write to you right after the assasination, but I didn’t have the courage. I am sorry I waited so long. I am a Catholic girl, thirteen years old, and I go to St. Ladislas School.

I suppose you would say I am a person that expresses what I feel in my heart. My grief and shock cannot be explained. I dearly loved President Kennedy, not because he was the president, but because he was a man that stood for everything I hoped and believed in. He was the symbol of the America I loved. I cried so hard on Friday, the 22cd, and so did a lot of other girls. We were in the for fourth or fifth grade when he was running for pres. We used to skip around the playground at noon chanting, “Kennedy, Kennedy, he’s our Man, let’s throw Nixon in the garbage can. It sounds silly now, but it was our way of voting. For some reason I felt safe and secure, knowing Pres. Kennedy was the head of our country, and the first few months after he died, I was scared to death something else horrible was going to happen. I finally quieted my fears, but sometimes my imagination runs away with me. You will always be my model of a true woman. What I mean is, someone who can endure what you did and still stay calm out in public. I know for a fact, if I were you, I would have cried and cried. I know I cannot nor could not find any solace in tears, but sometimes they help to ease the hurt.

My mother died of leukemia when I was six years old. I have 5 brothers and sisters, the twins were only 2 yrs. old when she died. I had the great privilege of knowing my mother a little. But I always feel some hurt when I know my brothers (Jim + Dave, now 8 yrs.) will never know the comforting arms of a real mother. I myself vaguely remember her, but everyone says she was the kindest, most gentlest woman that ever lived. It has been seven years since she died, but Daddy still gets that faraway look in his eyes whenever anyone talks about her.

I am still young, so I don’t know many things. I have a question to ask,
something that has been troubling me ever since Pres Kennedy’s death. Why does God let everyone so good and kind be taken to heaven, when we so badly need them on earth? I have been trying to find an answer, but I can’t do it myself. Please help me to understand. I know that death is only parting a short time, compared to eternity in heaven, but still I think I shall never see Mommie as she was on earth. Sometimes I feel so sorry for myself because I don’t have a mother that I cry. But I soon stop, because I have been taught that everyone is radiantly happy in heaven, and we shouldn’t wish them on earth again because everything is so perfect in heaven.

Right now I am thinking of my vocation. Sometimes I would like to serve God by being a Sister. Other times I want to marry and have children, to teach them how important the phrase For God and my Country is. I will pray for you and I wish you all the luck and happiness in the world.

Please pray for me too.

Ask God to lighten my rough and crooked path to heaven, and I will do the same for you.

I love you and

God bless and keep you and the children

My sincere love and respect
Patricia Lee Rita Mary Boling

PALESTINE, TEXAS

DECEMBER 6, 1963

My Dear Mrs Kennedy,

I am so sorry that am just now sending you this card with this letter. I am also sorry that us peoples down here in the South has (bad) a State like this place called Texas. I even hate to live in Texas now, but me being Crippled all up in my right leg and arm with Arthritis in my back. I will have to lived here the rest of my life, I was born here in Palestine, Texas January 18,-1934, my parents are dead, a white man told my father to come out to his house and get his money for some ducks. My Father
went out there when he got out of his car the white man shot my Father through a window with a shot gun, this white man just murdered my Father back in 1946. then in 1951, my mother died in Parkland Hospital from an operation in Dallas, Texas. I am disable to work, but I can walk. I walk with a limp, by me being Cripple, Texas is rotten, this Place is so rotten that the State Dept. Welfare wont give me a disability, isnt that rotten, when that man murdered my Father the Police did not put him in jail they just let him go. I new that they would not do any thing to him, you see, my Father was a negro just like me, but that was 17 years ago. I just can not take a man life. I would rather be dead my self, Mrs Kennedy I my self hope you have a nice Christmas with your little boy John Jr., and your little girl Caroline. I also hope your life be as happy and joy can be, I just love to have a big picture of you, Mr. Kennedy and your two children. I would love to have a big color picture of you and your family. I was crazy about your husband Mr. John F. Kennedy. I wont ever for get him, so I will close this letter, so good by Mrs. Kennedy.

from a Friend
Clinton Hale Holman—

EL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA
JANUARY 26, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

As I watched the Television program for four days feeling the great burden that was suddenly thrust upon you and your loved ones, I never realized that within a couple of weeks I, too, would be going through a similar experience.

I am a mother of three sons all serving the country in various fields. The youngest, Roger, chose to serve with the program that your husband initiated, and as a Peace Corps volunteer was assigned to a primitive and remote barrio in Dikalongan, Mindanao of the Philippines. Here he passed on December 9th, 1963 suffering a reaction to the malaria suppressive they were required to take.

In Roger’s second to last letter written I would like to quote what he had to say about your husband upon hearing of the assassination. “The assassination of President Kennedy is a great and trying lost to our nation and to the world. He was a champion leader of Peace and freedom, guided only by honesty and respect for the individual. In one respect it is a loss, yet on the other hand we should be grateful for being the recipients of such firm leadership, though it ended abruptly. I will never forget the morning I heard the news. It was November 23rd and was one of those grey overcast mornings when one thinks it is earlier than it really is since it is darker. Peter and I had gone to Esperanza for the district track meet. I had rolled up my mat and mosquito netting off the floor and had walked over to the school to a morning breakfast of rice and fish with the teachers and children when I was told the news. I thought my Filipino friend had not gotten the news correctly, but I went back to the house where we were staying and woke Peter to tell him. Neither will I forget sitting on the dirt floor of the tailor shop listening to the radio as the rumors were confirmed and tears clouded our vision. That evening we went home to listen to the Voice of America broadcast. In order to obtain better reception we turned off our one electric light. The house was full of friends that had come by to listen with us. And the Voice of America came in strong and clear with a background of Chinese music. No one spoke during the hour-long program, as we listened to the news of the tragic ending of our President.”

In Roger’s frequent letters written home he would tell of the great beauty he had found in another’s land and the joy in getting to know and understand another race of people. With all of this rich material, one of his older brothers, Rick and I are putting together in a book. We hope not to convey so much the idea of a memorial to Roger but rather to perpetuate the involvement of more people to the extent of Peace Corps activities. However the essence of the message will prove in the last analysis that death was not the victor.

And I would like to share this thought with you, Mrs. Kennedy, from St. John 17:4, which has brought much solace to me.

“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”…

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

DECEMBER 21, 1963

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

This is not a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year message by any means; however, I am intentionally writing at this time, as I know how you are feeling at this time of the year.

My mother is in very low spirit lately and talking about Mr. Kennedy doesn’t help the situation; my friends are all excited about the holidays and aren’t interested in me because I sincerely wish the next two months were passed. So I had to write to you immediately.

I have been a politician since 1952, when I was four years old. I told all my friends to vote for Stevenson because my uncle said so. (He was the Democratic precinct captain) Before, 1960, I was interested in a man’s party rather than his personality. That fall my mother had a huge picture of J.F.K—the man for the sixties in our picture window. My father said “He can’t miss—he’s Irish, Catholic and Democratic”. At this point I became interested in your husband not as a presidential candidate but as a man. During November, the family watched the campaigns, the election, and in January, the inauguration.

When the news reached us at Mother McAuley, the whole student body started to pray first that what we heard was just a rumor and, later that God would spare our president, our leader. Ill never forget that day—it was raining in Chicago, but I didn’t even bother putting up the umbrella which hung from my arm. When I arrived home, I watched the
T.V. broadcast and I cried. My mother came home from school in tears and joined me in front of the television. We watched until the stations stopped broadcasting for the night. The next day, we watched Mayor Daley’s speech to the city council as well as other memorial speeches.

There was a certain numbness the following week; everyone was thinking of the President but none were able to speak his name.

Often, I have thought of Mr. Kennedy and cried. The tears, however, are partly for the other great man who died on May 16, 1963—my father. I have made many comparisons between them. My father was not wealthy, he was not a great statesman. He did serve on the Solomon Islands in W.W.II and came home after suffering from malaria. He was not the commander of a PT boat, he was Staff Sargeant Joseph A. Kilmurry, better know to his friends as “Irish”. He longed to go back to Ireland to visit West Meath which he left over thirty years ago; your husband did make the trip. My father spent hours in a rocking chair which he said was “just like Jack’s” but he was not resting his back—he was dying of cancer. You love your husband—I love and miss my father. We have much in common this Christmas.

I want you to know I’m praying for Mr. Kennedy’s soul as often as I pray for my father’s which is at least once a day.

My only regret is that I never came to Washington. Now, I have no desire to see the White House or the Capitol Building but I have been promised a trip to Washington so I can visit Arlington Cemetery and say a prayer over the grave of the greatest of Presidents and one of the greatest men of the world.

I don’t expect an answer, as I know you are busy but, if at all possible, I would appreciate a prayer card.

With love and respect,
Ellen Kilmurry

P. S. Enclosed is a page from our school’s newspaper—the Mother McAuley Inscape

TUCSON, ARIZONA
NOV. 25 1963

Dear John Jr.

Altho I am sixty five years five months & five days older than you, we will both have one thing in common, a birthday to remind us of a tragedy that happened to us in the past.

Altho I did not vote for your father when he was running for president I have learned to admire & love him as he grew in his job, not the deep love that I know you & your sister & mother had for him, but the kind of love that is mentioned so often in the bible, where it says we should love our neighbor as our selves, those things you will learn as you grow older.

Your father was shot & killed on Nov. 22 & layed to rest on Nov. 25th which is your birthday so you will always be reminded on your birthday of what happened on your third birthday, but on the other hand you can be reminded that there was more heads of states & more heads of countries at your fathers funeral (and rightly so) than any other man ever layed to rest.

My father also was killed on Nov. 22 in a saw mill accident when I was five months old, also that same day was my mothers seventeenth birthday, so she was left a widow at seventeen years of age with a five month old son, but a little over a year later she remaried & had ten more children, & while they were always very poor, the one thing she tried to do was raise us all to live for & believe in God, & I will always thank her for that, also she out lived her second husband & she is still living & in her eighties.

I of course got married & raised two fine girls & a fine son, & our son like your father was in the second world war, & in 1944 on Nov. 25th which is your birthday, our son was killed in action, so you see I will never forget your birthday or the date your father was so cowardly killed & may God bless you & your sister & mother & give you
the strength to carry on & when you grow up I hope you will be elected president & take over where your father left off & finish the job that he started.

A friend
C O Carriker