Letters to Jackie (24 page)

N.Y. N.Y.
[FEBRUARY 3, 1964, POSTMARK]

My Dear Mrs. Kennedy

In 1957, when I was a freshman at the University of California, my roommate and I put up a sign in our room which read, “Kennedy for Emperor!” And we meant it; we cajoled democrats: we tyrannized republicans.

You might imagine how delighted I was to attain my majority on Nov. 4, 1961, just in time to vote for him on Nov. 6. It was the best present I could have had.

Election night was unbelievable; those of us who managed to stay awake were sorely tempted to burn down the Oakland Tribune building in celebration.

The effect of his election and the force of his personality was tremendous at Cal. Students who had long been disillusioned with politics and discounted it as an ignoble profession, who considered it a kind of legalized crime, and those who practiced it opportunists, suddenly changed
their minds. Because, at last, there was a Man in the White House, a Man who had the courage to lead, to really lead, to serve this country the way he thought it should be served. There were so many reasons to love him, his unjaded approach to the world, his new ways of getting things going, of doing what was right without too much attention to the ballot box. This is what we had always wanted from the President, and at last we were getting it.

We loved him very much.

I think we all proved it one May, when the University was celebrating its anniversary and your husband was coming to speak to us. We had to use the football stadium and it was full an hour and a half before he arrived. When he did, the whole student body, possibly one of the most unsentimental, cynical, even unaffectionate groups in the country, stood up and applauded until their hands hurt—many cried. It was wonderful to be so very proud.

Most of us called him “our leader” but we didn’t feel it was disrespectful; after all, he was, as no one else had ever been.

November 22 and the days that followed were the most miserable of my life. Things can never be as good again, for me or for anyone else.

On Christmas Eve, I came across a line from Horace that was of some help. I thought you might like it too:

NON OMNIS MORIAR—I SHALL NOT WHOLLY PERISH.

With great respect and admiration,
Dona Fowler

CAMARILLO, CALIF.

DECEMBER 3, 1963

My Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

Through the United States and all over the world, there are millions of people like me. We do not move in important social circles; we do not make decisions which influence the lives of huge numbers of our
neighbors; nor do we often write letters to public figures to express our thoughts and feelings. We are seldom even visited by the pollsters who profess to know how we think.

We are, in short, the millions who have been dumbly suffering with you since the moment of the murder of your fine husband—our good and great President. Surely nothing I can say can mitigate your grief and the sorrow of your children which will grow with the years when they are more and more aware of the loss of their father. I can only do what I know many of the voiceless ones are doing. I can only pledge you that the influence which your husband had on us and our country—the world, in fact—will not be allowed to wither because we have forgotten.

Your husband was the first president to be of our generation. We have known all or part of two world wars and many smaller conflicts and we have been sick with yearning for peace. We have yearned to feel that our children and their children would grow up in a world which had given up senseless slaughter and he—he gave us hope.

The great ones of the world have spoken their condolences. Now I presume to beg you not to forget nor to let your children forget that they had a father who moved the hearts and minds of men. May your bright courage never fail you. We have watched with silent pride as you did what had to be done and did it in a way which magnifies wives everywhere.

Very truly yours,
Tom Emmitt

PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY PARK,
PENNSYLVANIA
JANUARY 14, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

When I think of the countless number of letters you must have already received, I feel guilty about adding mine to your burden, but I feel
strongly compelled to write you for whatever comfort it may bring you, and that is why this letter is in your hands at present.

It has taken all this time, to begin to be able to express what I have painfully felt for the last two months.

A few days before Christmas, a friend’s illness forced me to leave my husband’s side here at Penn. State and travel by myself to New York City to comfort him.

…This necessary week away from my husband reminded me once more what loneliness means, and gave me an idea of what you must feel. I think that knowing, loving, and living with a dynamic person and then losing him, must be much more painful than the loneliness of never having loved.

Christmas Eve, I looked at a photograph of my husband, and thought to myself, “what if this were all I had left?” I am beginning to understand.

Your husband made an unprecedented impact upon people of all ages. I think his main contribution, in his life and in his death, was to give America a conscience. I am proud that I respected your husband’s ideals throughout his short term as President, and that it did not take his death to make me appreciate what he had accomplished and the unfinished things he wanted to accomplish. One of my biggest privileges was going to be able to vote for your husband in the 1964 election. (I was only 19 years old in 1960.) But, his ideals have taught me to give of myself, in any way I can, for my country, even if this cannot include casting a ballot for the most truly magnificent
leader
this country has ever had. I say
leader
, because although we have had many presidents, we have had few true leaders.

New York is a place that makes you feel you’re on the top of the world, or a lone being in a stream of humanity at the bottom of a concrete chasm. I have felt—and still feel—the latter. Thoughts enter, cross, and recross my mind: that one man should have had the power to, in such a short instant, cancel out all the things that the man
was
, as well as the man himself; the following days of mourning when people demonstrated a long-lost decency to each other, and even those who couldn’t
express their thoughts, began to think; the blossoming of JFK records, pictures, pens, etc., by those who wanted to give the common man something to hold onto, as well as those who were lecherously capitalizing upon the occasion, perhaps creating a bigger sin and demonstrating a greater sickness than the man who killed our President.

This has been the legacy: good or bad, it stands.

My husband and I had applied for Peace Corps duty before the tragic event of two months ago, and, ironically, we were notified of our acceptance as trainees on November 22, 1963. We are more determined than ever to do our job in the Peace Corps, and, speaking for myself, more strongly, as an American citizen than before. After the Peace Corps, we will also be very conscious of our contributions to our city, the nation, and the world. Your husband is one of the guiding influences we have had in becoming responsible citizens of this nation and the world. The debt I owe to your husband is carrying out what he has taught me:
caring
is not enough,
doing
is what counts. This is why service in the Peace Corps is so important to my husband and me. President Kennedy gave us the opportunity, it is our responsibility to take advantage of it.

I truly hope that this letter serves as some sort of comfort to you, even it it is small; that there are two people here who are aware of the man that was, and the ideals that were the man.

Karen S. Kendler

CAPTAIN PETER NEAL O’CONNOR

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

GRIFFISS AIR FORCE BASE

NEW YORK

NOVEMBER 25, 1963

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

Please accept the deep sympathy and prayers of Mrs. O’Connor and myself for you and the children in this, your time of need. Words can
not convey our grief over the loss of our monumental leader and beloved President. Your courage has been our strength.

I leave shortly for Viet Nam. His spirit and dedication go with me. Although we never met John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we knew him well and loved him deeply.

Peter N. O’Connor

THANKSGIVING DAY, 1963

Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

You will probably never read this letter. Certainly my sorrow can in no way alleviate yours. But with the people of this nation, I mourn the death of a man among men; and however small this tribute, it is all I have to offer.

For on this day of Thanksgiving, I find myself remembering…

In Guadalajara, Mexico, I wait impatiently for the bus under a molten, blazing sun. A street sweeper approaches hesitantly, and with a “perdóneme, señorita,” says “Whom do you wish to be your president?” I am ashamed that I cannot answer, and at my uncertain response, he tells me of one John Kennedy, the senator from Massachusetts who has just received the democratic presidential nomination. The scene is repeated many times that summer, and when I return to the United States, listen carefully to the words of that young senator. I remember…that I am not quite old enough to vote. But I am young enough, that election eve, to trudge from house to house in sub-zero Minnesota weather to speak to others of John F. Kennedy. And I remember…

Two days later I awake with the question I dare not ask. To my unspoken plea, my roommate says, “He won.” A telegram goes out that night: “Two democrats in Lutheran Republican college send congratulations to our President.”

In the days and months that follow…the Berlin wall—the Cuban crisis—civil rights—the wheat deal. President and Mrs. Kennedy…in
Hyannisport—at church—with their children. The nation has found its voice, and that voice rings out to the “new generation of Americans”. Our natonal pride is renewed; our faith in God is strengthened. We lift our heads and proudly scorn the prophets of doom, the voices of the lost generation. John Kennedy is more than a president. He is the image of America itself. And then…

What was is suddenly no longer. I enter my classroom to say—what? to those anxious voices that ask, “Is it true?” They stand for prayer, but I have no voice to pray. The room is silent, the English lesson forgotten. And then, the final, irrevocable word comes through. The President is dead. Their eyes beg me to deny, but I have no voice. He is buried three days later, and with him is buried a part of every American.

To you in life, Mrs. Kennedy, go our prayers and our deepest sympathy. To your late husband in death goes our pledge—that we will carry the torch that he lit—and that the world will be lit in his name. For the watchman did not wake in vain.

With heartfelt sympathy—

Marcia Schwen

NOVEMBER 23, 1963

Dear Caroline and John,

This may well be the most selfish letter that was ever written but unless I spill out the thoughts that are milling thru my mind this grey day in November, I am not sure I will ever be able to justify future words of encouragement that may be my lot to utter to anyone.

We have children your ages and I wonder what we will tell them in defense of a society that could spawn the type of mentality which uprooted your young lives, when they read in history of yesterday’s episode?

In defense of those among us, your fathers contemporaries, who looked to him for leadership and courage, may I humbly say that we are left as bereft of spirit as your family is this day.

When John F. Kennedy was elected president, I did not stand among those who had voted for him. Why? Because I was afraid—not for his physical well being (this never occurred to me.) Not because I doubted he could do the job, but because I was anxious about what the Job would do to him. He was a Christian idealist—I had misgivings about his stepping into such a secular market place, for the pressures which would be brought to bear upon him. “Better he should suffer the loss of the whole world, than that of his soul.” Somehow I could not bring myself to contribute such a burden upon such an outstanding Christopher.

After he was elected, I joined the throngs in sending congratulations, and even reminding him of the above and pledging my daily prayers. I never forgot them for a day, and somehow, I do not believe he forgot them for an hour—I am no historian or student of politics, but somehow I feel that in the dramatic hours of decision which faced him from time to time (and they were many in this decade which he began) God himself must have been looking over his shoulder.

As a mother of a one, and three, and five year old, I lived with a comfortable feeling of having our specific world being currently guided by a father of a two and a five year old—feeling that he was basically working on the kind of daily course of humanities which he hoped to present to you—his heirs. He could not bequeath it to you without doing so to us and so, I lived with a comfortable feeling.

When you are old enough to read this, I hope you will be understanding enough to realize that many, many of us felt a loss equally as acute as yours, and maybe even more difficult to bear because it had to be done in muteness.

Please God, may each of your worlds be as good as your father’s high hopes and may each of you grow in grace and wisdom (and forgiveness) so that his life will not have been in vain.

Your mother may well wonder how to explain us, the citizens of the sixties, to you, when you grow to a knowledgeable age. This is how I will try to tell such a bitter page in history to our children. We needed your
dad to lift us from the tired, trite, sophist era of politics and politicians. We needed him to remind us all that it could be fashionable to be good and aspiring, strong and witty, determined and unbending, hopeful and charitable—in varying degrees as the need demanded. We needed to be reminded. He did this. I hope time will prove that enough of us have continued to remember his high hopes for humanity, and individually we have considered the effect our actions have on those about us. We shall certainly be grateful, with history, for having known such a president.

Most sincerely,
Midred F. Hesch
(Mrs.) Robert L. Hesch