November 21, 2023 – West Bend, WI – Wednesday, November 22, 2023, is the 60th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy.
The 35th President of the United States was assassinated in 1963 while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.
On a historical note, Kennedy campaigned in West Bend while he was seeking the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
The Research Center at the Washington County Historical Society provided a photo of Kennedy’s visit to West Bend on February 17, 1960, when he was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. The picture shows Kennedy walking north on Main Street with Thomas F. O’Meara Jr. on his right.
Remembering November 22, 1963, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Carol Heger of West Bend lived in Chicago in 1963.  I was in 2nd grade in suburban Chicago (Sherwood School, Highland Park). My teacher was called out of the classroom, and my fellow students and I were left alone, a very uncommon occurrence. We could see that the other teachers from our wing of the school also left their classrooms and headed toward the main entrance and office. When the teacher re-appeared, she was crying; she then announced President Kennedy had been shot. I remember soon afterward we were dismissed, and on the school bus on the way home I thought to myself I must tell my mom the President had been shot, it was urgent. Of course, when I arrived home my mother had already heard the news.
Doug Jaeger – I had finished a class or two on the Chemical Engineering campus at UW Madison the morning that JFK was shot, and I went over to the cafeteria next to that campus to speak to a friend who had heard I was driving north the next day and he asked if I could give him a ride. That is where I got the JFK news on the cafeteria television.
Wisconsin deer season was starting the next morning (Sat.) but I had to stick around Madison for classes on Friday morning though everyone else in my party had used that day to drive north. Of course, I was not happy about missing the opening day of deer season since our party was usually quite large: my father Roland, my brother, an uncle and a cousin, and another half dozen of my father’s friends. This was an annual event that I had been attending for the past 7 deer seasons.
I went back to our Madison apartment and got an update on the news. There my friend called and asked if he could bring along another friend of his also needing to be dropped near Eau Claire. I was happy to help because our deer camp near Ashland is a 300-mile drive from Madison and Eau Claire is on the way. I got the two guys up north by midafternoon on Sat. and continued my drive to deer camp. All day we were listening to continuing events on our car radio.
I have no memory of who I took north with me or who his friend was. But toward the end of our trip, they told me that the second friend was dating someone close to the Kennedy or Johnson family (not a daughter) and he had to get to Washington, D.C. for a dinner that evening. That was startling news.
What is your memory of that day in 1963?
