Letters to Jackie (21 page)

ATLANTA, GA
JAN. 14, 1964

Dearest Jackie,

I just had to let you know how much my family and Mother regretted the terrible incident of your husband. He died a brave man and was loved by most everyone.

The most important thing I want to tell you is how my mother
just seemed to worship your husband. She is nearly 80 years old, can’t write her name hardly, no education at all, but has learned a lot from television.

She would listen to his debates with Nixon before he became president and admired your husband. She for the first time in her life was interested in voting but couldn’t since she can’t read very good or write only her name. It is the first man she even noticed as President, even though we’re a poor family.

When you husband was assassinated, it nearly killed her too. She was sick for weeks and at that time she left her television on and listened for anything she could hear about him.

President Kennedy was in the hearts of all the aged and poor even though he was wealthy himself and I know he wanted freedom and peace for all. He reached the hearts of many that no one else could reach but our Lord God.

We are from the South but there were many, many people here that loved him for what he did and what he was.

May you and your children be rewarded in many ways in the future for your having such a wonderful husband and father.

May the unity be between you and your children as you had while he was living. That is something else I admired him for—unity.

You were a wonderful, first lady and was also admired by everyone. You were so brave of an example to your husband at the time of his assassination and death. You are still loved by all and your children are loved also.

We will never forget you, your husband and your children.

May God be with you forever in being a father and mother to your children.

Our Love
Mrs. John G. Cook
And Mother—Mrs. Henry Wood

MALOTT, WASHINGTON

NOV. 23-63

Mrs. Kennedy,

Just an Indian who was deeply moved an shocked awakening as to things we take for granted from day to day. He carried our burden of this Reservation on his shoulders. I cannot find words to express my family an I feelings, except that we’ve come to love him very much these past three years as our
Great White Father
. He was a man helping us here. I know because he was that kind of a man. We’ve never before known such consideration. My sympathy an prayer’s go out to you an yours.

I remain a
Freind
Mrs. Pearl A Charley

FT. BELKNAP IND. RES.
NOV. 23, 1963

Dear Mrs. Kennedy,

I awake at dawn of this day with the grim realization that our president is dead. My words mingle with tears flowing through my pen as I write.

I am a Crow Indian woman who married into the assiniboine tribe and I write without a moments hesitation that the heart of every member of this tribe has been torn out by the roots and placed upon the ground by fate, as mine is. Yet, time shall pick up each heart and shall place it back in our breasts. Gently soothing the torn and broken parts with the wonderful healing balm that our Creator has placed in the hands of time. Ah! but the scars shall remain as long as we live. The sadness and despair of Our First Lady reaches out across the miles to bring tears to the eyes of the strongest heart.

The voice of Our Great Leader, John F. Kennedy seems to fill the air telling us to
stand
brave and true for the freedom of this great nation.

I pray that the Great Comforter, the Holy Spirit will comfort the hearts of you and your beloved children now and guide you through the rest of your lives through, the Son of our Creator, Jesus.

With the mourning song of the Indian nation still on my lips I write to let you know we care. With my heart on the ground, I join you in sorrow.

Mrs. Alma Snell

DEC. 6-63

My Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

After watching everything on television and not being a very well educated person, I wasn’t going to write you, for words I would use would be so small to comfort you The loss of your husband, the children’s father, my president whom I so admired and looked to for help. But today the sixth of December just got me, when the President was to visit us here in southeastern Kentucky.

Let me quote John G. Deitrich (U.P.I.) will describe us more fully, “Kentucky and especially its eastern mountains which have lived so itemately with tragedy bowed heads with rest of the nation in grief over the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy.

The fact that this commonswealth never gave its political favors to the dead Pres. in no way altered the stunned sorrow of its people. If possible, Kentucky’s mourning was deepened by the knowledge that Pres. Kennedy in his last days had come to a realization that something needed to be done for the mountain people quickly. Arrangements were completed for him to visit the Kentucky mountains on Dec. 6 to see the situation here with his own eyes. Now eastern Kentuckians hardened by years of faded promises, cannot but wonder what will happen to these programs under a new administration facing a Congress reluctant to spend the money involved.”

You see, my dear Jackie, we begin again hoping, I had written Presi
dent about federal tax cut for low income brackets, but now I’ve lost hope in it. My dear Jackie, you were so brave all during everything, being the great Lady you are, it was expected of you. I will never forget little John saluting, the memory of him will live with me always.

The eternal flame burning for our pres. will surely show others the path which he was helping us to make. It is my prayer that you and children will have a lovely Christmas, may God bless you all.

When a loved one is gone, we can’t have them back, we know that, but there’s one thing we will always have, and that is our memory of them blessed memories, how they can comfort us. A poet once knew these memories and put them in a poem, I’ll pass on to you, may be you too, will find comfort in it as I have.

Long be my heart with such memories filled

“As a vase in which roses were once distilled

You may break, you may shatter if you will

But the scent of the roses will hang around it still.”

May God bless you allways,

Most sincerely,
frances Ralston
Middleboro, KY

BELLROSE—L.I.

My Dear Mrs. KeNNedy,

My GrandMother and I Are Not of the weilhed peopLe. As A matter oF Fact we have LiTTLe or No schooLinG. BuT After This proFond shock, iT has shook the rich and the poor. We oF the poor Just DIDN’T Know how to Express our sTunned feeLing to Express to the GrEAT LAdy you Are.

PLease ForGive me For beinG Forward. IF This couLD Be jusT A LiTTLE COMFord To you My GrandMother keeps a CANdLE to the BLessed MoThee For our BeLoved JAck KeNNedy The 35th Presed
eNT OF the UNiTed STATES. We would iF we couLD SAY Is There ANy ThinG we CAN do. ALL we couLD SAY I AM Sorry

RespecTFulLy yours
Mrs PaTi
VIVIAN MANFRE.

PROVIDENCE, R.I.

NOV. 29, 1963.

Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

I want to write you at this time to let you know that I for one lost a dear friend when John F. Kennedy was so quickly and unfairly taken from us.

My name is Arthur John Gambardelli, I am forty-six, have been blind since I was a baby, and, am a graduate from Perkins School in Watertown, Mass.

In 1953 I had a nervous break-down and not having any finances and not wanting to be a burden to my partially blind wife, I volenteered to go to a State Mental Hospital. I am not really bad, I have a slight heart condition and of course because if it I am affraid to be alone. I could have been taken care of had I had the finance to pay for doctors. So, I sat here and dreamed of the things I would like to do but couldn’t because of circumstances My life looked pretty dark.

In 1960 I began to see light because I had heard of a friend with personality and convictions of things he wanted to do for his country. Of course that man was our President J. F. Kennedy. I got a shut-in ballot and voted for him beca use he was my kind of man. As time went on and he gave his program for the elderly, the mentally-ill and the blind I found that he and his whole family were becoming my friends. I was glad to read of our president’s achievements. I was also proud of you and your two little children. President Kennedy his two children and You have been my friends since 1960. I read everything I can about the whole family. I would gladly have given my do nothing life for his any-time. The kind of life I am living there is plenty of. The things President Kennedy and the whole Family stood for there is

not much of. I was deeply shocked to hear the news of President Kennedy’s death As far as I am concerned I lost a dear friend. Also in my heart John F. Kennedy will always be President Kennedy and You will always be the First Lady and of course I will always Pray for the President the two little children and You. Because I feel that the Kennedy family and what they stood for can never be replaced.

I would like to know if you will please do me a favor. I know that I cannot see but I would appreciate having a copy of the picture like those given at the Mass. I will always pray for President Kennedy his two children and You as Long as I live. God Bless You All.

From a friend who Loves You All.
Arthur M. Gambardelli

BROOKLYN, NY
NOVEMBER 24 1963

To the Kennedy family

This is with deep sorrow and sincerest feeling that I wish to extend my condolences to you

You do not know me but I have always liked and kept in close touch with the happenings of the world

I am handicapped and live at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital here in Brooklyn New York City I have been an admirer of your husband son and father ever since he was senator

I know that he shall always be rembered by me because he was a fine person a humanitarian who believed in human individual right and to me he was another roosevelt

Let me end this note with this one thought may his soul rest and be remembered in our hearts forever as he died for our country

Sincerly
Natalie Siegel

T
he West Virginia primary marked a turning point in John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign for the presidency. Although then reliably Democratic, the state’s population was overwhelmingly white and Protestant. Many believed Kennedy could not overcome local suspicion of his Catholicism and background, especially in a state where unemployment and poverty in Appalachia, as well as hardship among coal mining families, joined “politics and hunger.”

Some West Virginians freely admitted that they opposed Kennedy solely on the basis of his religious faith. But as he campaigned in West Virginia, and confronted the religious issue head-on in a televised program that featured Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. posing pointed questions on the matter, Kennedy began to make headway. He devoted much of his time in the televised appearance to reassuring voters that he would honor the separation of Church and State. Noting that when a President took the oath of office he “is swearing to support the separation of church and state,” Kennedy observed, “he puts one hand on the Bible and raises the other hand to God as he takes the oath. And if he breaks the oath, he is not only committing a crime against the Constitution, for which the Congress can impeach him—and should impeach him—but he is committing a sin against God.” In the end, Kennedy won the primary and forced Hubert Humphrey from the campaign.

PRINCE TON, W VA.

MARCH 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and John John

I have been trying to write my letter to you every day. But could not bear to do so. I thought perhaps a little time might help. But it does not only gets worse. My grief for your husband is as painful as when it all happened.

A book would not hold all I thought and felt for our beloved President and his family.

I was left alone to raise three boys and a daughter. I had a struggle raising them. But after Mr. Kennedy was elected President of U.S.A. all my doubts of future faded. All I could think of was a bright and hopeful
future. Mr. Kennedy gave me strength and courage to face all the tomorrows and years to come. Now all that is gone forever.

JFK shaking the hand of a coal miner while campaigning in West Virginia, 1960
Senator Kennedy shakes hands with a miner, photograph by Hank Walker, with permission of Time-Life Pictures.

I am a democrat all my people are to. I worked for the democrat party during the 1960 election. also the W. Va primary all public places, super markets, any where I happen to be. They did not say anything about Mr. Kennedys religion, that I didn’t tell them off. They shut up too. That was the only thing I heard was religion. Now they are sorry. They now bear in the sorrow.

When Mr. Kennedy was campaining in W. Va my children and I waited for the arrival of the Caroline at the Mercer County air port near Bluefield, W. Va. to see him. We waited and waited. At last here it came. We were so excited. It was in the early spring. We shook his hand. He was smiling. We told him our name was “Gore”. He said “Seamed to be a lot of people around here by that name” We told him we were all going to vote for him. He smiled and said “For us to get all our Aunts, Uncles, & cousins to vote for him too”. We said we would. You were standing in the back ground smiling. Than away you went toward Bluefield, W Va. to start the campaigning in the coal fields.

Ever time I am going that way I look and say to my self not to long ago Jack Kennedy rode by here and looked at these mountains.I fought so vigorously for Mr. Kennedy in the Primary election. Ever one told me I should get a good job. I didn’t do it for those reasons I saw a wonderful man for our future, and was tired of our state being poverty stricken with the other party in office.

He gave me courage & strength after he won. I went to Richmond Va. to seek employment. Got a leg injury and came back to Princeton W Va. in Oct. 1963. I think of Mr. Kennedy, of you Mrs. Kennedy and your two beautiful children everday I cry & grieve all the time.

Since he is gone, all my hopes and dreams for the brighter days I wanted so much to see are gone forever no shining smiling faces, Little childrens laughter gone. All the hope I had left for my family and people in West Virginia. My children all live in different states to secure employment.

I looked forward so much hoping they would change the name of West Virginia to Kennedy. All hope of that is gone too now…. I shall always believe Oswald had help in doing what he did. I hope & pray it will all come out in the open…

I am planning on visiting Mr. Kennedys grave this summer. As the public says a little of us died when he died. But for me not a little, but all of me died. I suppose it was because I was left alone to raise four children. I had no income at all. My parents died. No one to go to in my sorrow. I felt like I had some one to turn to. I could see his smiling face on T.V. in the newspapers. He was there with you somehow. He made us here in W Va. feel like he was sent from heaven to take the place of Jeses. Sometimes I think he was. You know they crusified Jesus so they had to crusify Jack Kennedy.

I do not watch the T.V. news reports any more….

Good luck to you Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and John John.

With all My Love
Mrs. Lennie Gore Housley

P.S. Mrs. Kennedy

If it had been possible

I would have given

My life to spare

Mr. Kennedys life