Catholics
Interrupted
John Harnett walked into his 5th
grade classroom of St. Barnabas Elementary School subdued by daily routine. He
combed through his short blonde hair with his fingers and proceeded to tidy up
by tucking in his white-dress shirt. He sat down at his desk in the front row
and close to the teachers.
At 8:30 a.m. Harnett’s 5th grade teacher Sister
John strode into the classroom dressed in a heavy black garb and black bonnet. She
took a quick daily attendance. When that was done she raised her chin and
announced: “Let us bow our heads in prayer. ”
It was not unusual for each and every day at
St. Barnabas Elementary to begin with singing the Ave Maria. The school stretched the width of a city
block and was located at E 241st St, Bronx, N.Y. It was half a mile
away from Harnett’s home at 235th street—an area known as Woodlawn.
North Woodlawn was comprised of two convents, a Catholic grammar school, high
school, rectory and church. The neighborhood was predominately Irish Catholic
and worshiped John F. Kennedy, a fellow Irish Catholic, as though he were the
messiah.
As the young Harnett sat in his classroom,
Kennedy was en-route through Texas on a two-day, five-city tour/campaign. The
President’s trip was for natural resources and conservation efforts, however,
Kennedy also used it to highlight the importance of national security,
education and world peace.
The classroom walls hummed with the sound of
morning prayers. After that, they resumed their seats and began with their
studies; Sister John wasted no time at all in marking up the blackboard with
homework assignments for the following day, of which there were many. Harnett
opened up the notebook on his wooden desk and doodled while pretending to take
notes. His friend Tommy McGlaughlin read Nancy Drew books in the back row of
the classroom to the far left.
Shortly before noontime, the children were
given a break for lunch and recess. Some ate at their desks, others, like
Harnett, chose to walk home to eat. When he was done, he grabbed his book sack
and headed back to St. Barnabas. The walk was quick, yet the November air was
crisp and lightly burned his cheeks until they were rosy red; the city sky
overhead was gunmetal grey.
Meanwhile, Kennedy was en route to Dallas to
continue his campaign. His morning was spent outside of a hotel in Fort Worth,
giving a brief speech to a crowd of several thousand supporters. The morning
dark and rainy, yet Kennedy wore no protection against the elements. He spoke
of the continued growth in the nations economy and insisted that America needed
to be “second to none,” in defense and in space.
“We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom,”
he said. “We will continue to do our duty, and the people of Texas will be in
the lead.” Kennedy’s speech was well received, and the presidential party
departed from the hotel in Fort Worth and moved onward to their next
destination
Ten minutes past noon, Harnett entered his New
York City classroom. He walked over to greet Tommy, who was standing next to
another student, Michael McCaffrey. As McCaffrey pressed his round face up to
the glass fish-tank, Tommy posed a question: “Why do fish never get cold?”
They don’t get cold because their cold-blooded
animals, McCaffrey told him. Harnett and McGlaughlin were intrigued both by the
answer and the quickness of its delivery. They leaned closer, examining the
sparse population inside the tank.
With a short plane ride, the President and the
first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, arrived in Dallas Love Field where a crowd
gathered. The President shook the hands of his supporters and Mrs. Kennedy
received a bouquet of roses. They sat in the back seat of a convertible with
Governor Connally and his wife, Nellie, in the front. The motorcade departed
for Trade Mart for the President’s next speech.
Harnett looked at the fish; as their yellow
scales reflected the light coming from the ceiling he could pick up the aroma
of varying ingredients from the fish food container adjacent to the tank. He thought of McCaffrey’s answer when the
loudspeaker overhead made an announcement: “We’ve just received word that our
president, JFK, has been shot.”
The classroom fell into a sudden silence with
the end of the message, followed by a spontaneous clatter. Sister John briskly
announced that recess was over, and to gather in prayer. Harnett, McGlaughlin,
McCaffrey and the rest of the students did as they were told and found their
seats. They bowed their heads and prayed. The first prayer was the Our Father,
followed by Hail Mary. They repeated the prayers for ten to fifteen minutes and
then continued their daily academic routine.
Sister John began teaching her reading,
writing, and arithmetic lessons. Harnett noticed that she scribbled on the
chalkboard with nervous, frantic hands. An hour later, there was another
announcement: “The president is dead.”
The
news was met with more prayers led by Sister John. A half-hour later Harnett was
dismissed early from school. He walked home to find his parents worried and
huddled very close to the television. Neither said a word, neither had greeted
him when he entered the room.
“I’ll never forget how afraid we all were,”
said Harnett. “It was a very scary time to be a kid. Kennedy meant the world to
us and we thought he was untouchable.”
Harnett approached his mother and
father by the television. For the next 20 minutes they watched the repeated
clip on the news. They watched Kennedy travel down the populated streets of
Dallas by motorcade; the fatal gunshot wound to the head; Jacqueline’s panic as
she and crawled out of her seat and onto the trunk of the moving car.
Harnett’s father was somber; his
mother was frightened and covered her mouth with both of her hands. The
atmosphere in the room made the young Harnett uncomfortable.
“My mother was practically
hysterical,” said Harnett. “I wasn’t allowed out of the house for weeks—none of
my friends in the neighborhood were. It
was like the lent season.”
For the next hour, the only sounds
made in the Harnett living room came from the black-and-white television. They watched as news reporter Walter Cronkite
removed his black-rimmed spectacles, repeating the phrase Harnett heard in earlier
in his classroom: President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central standard time.
Cronkite announced that Father Huber, one of the two priests called into the
operating room, had administered the last sacrament of the Church to President
Kennedy. The television showed the people bowing their heads in prayer at the
Dallas luncheon that the President was scheduled to speak at that
afternoon.
“I remember watching Vice President Lyndon
B. Johnson being sworn into office that very same day,” said Harnett. “It was
chilling. Next to him was Jacqueline Kennedy, whose coat was still covered in
her husband’s blood.”
A week later, Harnett’s class was given a
homework assignment: to make a picture book of President Kennedy’s life.
Harnett returned home and told his parents of the assignment. They were eager
to help, and began cutting out pictures of Kennedy from local newspapers and
Life Magazine. They chose pictures of him getting married in Newport, RI; on a
yacht in Hyannis; in a field playing touch football with his brother, Robert
Kennedy.
“My parents obsessed over that book,” said
Harnett. “I think it was a way for them to remember him.”
Sister John gave everyone who handed in the
picture book an A for the day. Harnett brought the book back to his parents
after receiving his grade; they kept it on the coffee table by the television
for years.
Work Cited:
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, November
22, 1963: Death of the President. Accessed 8 Oct 2013. http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History.aspx.
Personal Interview with John Harnett October 1, 2013 and
October 12, 2013.
DatsPhucked. (2012, December 2). JFK Assasination Video [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2hFZUamgs4.
Maxpowers518. (2009, March 27). Walter Cronkite Announces Death of JFK [Video File]. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I.
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