In
the Eyes of an 11 Year Old Bostonian
SOMERVILLE,
MA –Towards the end of the school day at St. Catherine of Genoa, sixth-grader Timothy
O’Keefe was sitting at his desk looking through the hazy windows in the
classroom at a clear afternoon in November when his principal made an
announcement over the intercom President John F. Kennedy had been shot.
The
announcement echoed throughout the hallways.
It would be one of the few collective gasps he had ever heard.
The
Principal’s statement was short and blunt.
There was a distinct un-easiness in his voice, it was unclear whether
President Kennedy was alive or dead but it was clear that it was bad.
O’Keefe
felt anxious because he wasn’t old enough to truly understand what had
happened. “I’d never heard of anything like this before, I don’t think anybody
had.” O’Keefe, 11, liked watching
Kennedy on television.
Almost
2,000 miles away, Kennedy was brought to a nearby hospital in Texas after being
fatally wounded during motorcade in the streets of downtown Dallas.
The
news came over the television airwaves Eastern Time at 1:40 PM. On CBS, Walter Cronkite interrupted the
program, “As the World Turns.” “…Three
shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade…the first reports say Kennedy
has been seriously wounded by this shooting.”
Behind
the scenes in the newsroom CBS's Dan Rather scrambled for information. He
learned from two sources at Parkland Hospital that the president has died, and
a premature report goes out over CBS Radio. Citing Rather, Cronkite reports the
president's death but notes the lack of any official confirmation.
O’Keefe’s
teacher, a nun, began tearing up shortly after the Principal’s
announcement.
The
students at O’Keefe’s school were not dismissed but the rest of the day was not
productive. The students saw teachers
and administrators going in and out of classes, talking about the shooting and
the latest updates.
O’Keefe
was at a Catholic School and Kennedy was the first Catholic president, he would
later recall. “Kennedy was considered a
good man to every faculty member, to every family member.”
School
was dismissed at 2:30. “It was all of a
sudden foggy on a clear day,” O’Keefe said.
Walking up Summer Street, the neighborhood was in a daze. “You could determine his importance just by
the gloom and the despair it left in the streets, in the shops, in the
restaurants.”
On
live television at 2:37 PM CBS news editor handed Cronkite an Associated Press
wire report. Cronkite took a second to
read it to himself. “From Dallas, Texas,
the flash, apparently official.
President Kennedy died at 1:00 Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern
Standard Time.”
O’Keefe’s
mother, brothers and sisters were sitting close to the television when he
walked into his house. They had just
announced Kennedy’s death. “They didn’t
even look at me when I walked in,” he said.
His family continued to sit in front of the television with blank
stares. “My house wasn’t my house for a
moment, it was a place to watch the assassination coverage.” O’Keefe began
watching.
On
live CBS News Reports, after announcing his death, Cronkite cleared his throat
before revealing that Vice President Lyndon Johnson will presumably take the
oath to office to become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.
The
news anchors were getting emotional on live television. “I talked about it with my mother briefly…she
didn’t cry but my mother never cried,” he said.
“She had, you know…a grim look on her face and I could tell she didn’t
want to get into any deep conversation about it.”
O’Keefe
was a typical Irish-American boy with a big family and Catholic roots from
inner city Greater Boston, where JFK supporters were many. His parents were pure-bred Kennedy followers;
Irish-American, Roman-Catholic and Democrat.
The death hit them hard.
 | |
| Boston Globe Photo |
The
next day the grief could be seen wherever he went. He went to play basketball at a local outdoor
park in the neighborhood. “The old guys
who always played chess had a very unproductive game of chess,” O’Keefe
said. “They were talking about how much
of a tragedy his death was and how much of a bastard Oswald is.” The old men in the park asked O’Keefe and his
friends if they knew what happened.
“They told us we’d be telling our children about it one day,” he said.
When
he was home, the television was still on and his family was still
watching. The set would stay on for days
after and the O’Keefe family would be there watching.
On November 25 coverage of a National Day of
Mourning began at 7 PM with scenes from Washington DC. At 10:38 the coffin was placed on the caisson
for the procession to St. Matthews Cathedral where the funeral mass was to be
celebrated by Richard Cardinal Cushing and then moved across the Potomac River
for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
The
family watched as JFK’s son saluted the coffin at the funeral. O’Keefe’s older brother, John, saluted the
television seconds later.
In
the days and weeks that followed, there were recounts of the tragedy and tributes
to Kennedy on the networks. The
O’Keefe’s honored through prayer and recognition in their household. His parents continued to discuss the impact
of his death. “JFK was more than the
President, he was a figure, a symbol for the country, and everyone loved him so
you could imagine what it did…”
O’Keefe
caught his mother watching coverage of the funeral and crying. She never cried. “I knew what it meant then…I knew what had
really happened.”
[i]
Timothy O’Keefe, telephone interview with author, October 1, 2013.
[ii]
History.com, “John F. Kennedy Assassinated” <http://history.com/this-day-in-history/john-f-kennedy-assassinated>
[iii]
Emmytvglegeneds.org, “JFK assassination and funeral” <
http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/jfk-assassination-and-funeral>
[iv]
Emmytvglegeneds.org, “JFK assassination and funeral” < http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/jfk-assassination-and-funeral>
[v]
Timothy O’Keefe, telephone interview with author, October 1, 2013.
[vi]
Emmytvglegeneds.org, “JFK assassination and funeral” <
http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/jfk-assassination-and-funeral>
[vii]
Timothy O’Keefe, interview by author, Stonehill College, October 16, 2013.
[viii]
Timothy O’Keefe, interview by author, Stonehill College, October 16, 2013.
[ix]
Timothy O’Keefe, telephone interview with author, October 1, 2013.
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