How did you cope with the 1960's assassinations? Please share your stories of hope, survival and encouragement

[joymercy]

Where were you when these happened and how did you and your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc handle it?

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

I was very young, elementary school.I wrote a poem, an ode to President Kennedy. It was very traumatic for my family and me.

 

[joymercy]

I was very young, elementary school.I wrote a poem, an ode to President Kennedy. It was very traumatic for my family and me.

@Handmaid for Jesus thank you for bravely sharing this information from your life.
How are you doing today? Do you still have the Ode to President Kennedy and would you be able to share it?
Were there things your family did to cope with the trauma, and what was helpful?

 

[Rescued One]

My parents and step-parents weren't Christians and didn't talk about assasinations. No one I personally knew was murdered. The trauma/stress in my life was related to other events.

 

[mourningdove~]

Where were you when these happened and how did you and your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc handle it?

I was 9 years old (November 1963) when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I vividly remember myself sitting on the neighbor's green wrought iron fence near the street, when word of the assassination hit the news. Everyone was sad. Including me. I don't remember any discussions about it. Just that everyone was sad. I remember it being a very sad day in America, when President Kennedy was killed.

I was 13 (April 1968) when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I don't remember any of the details about that, except that persons around me were very concerned that there might be race riots in our city because of it. (I was living in Cleveland, where we had the Hough race riots in 1966.) While racial tensions were high in Cleveland in the 60's, there were no riots in our city in 1968.

I was still 13 (June 1968) when Bobby Kennedy was killed, and I just remember everyone being in shock that another Kennedy had been killed. There was a general sense of sadness in the air for the Kennedy family to have suffered another loss. But again, the adults around me didn't go into any discussion about what had happened.

p.s.
I shudder to think what the national response may have been if the assassination attempt on President Trump's life last weekend had been successful. I'm very grateful we are not dealing with that, this week. Thanks be to God.

 

[Rescued One]

I worked very near the White House in April 1968. My future husband (not engaged yet) was one of the soldiers sent to keep the peace in DC. I rode the bus into DC for transportation. It was very weird. I don't know where everyone was. The streets were very empty and you'd see a lone soldier in front of each liquor or jewelry store on K Street. The riots weren't as bad as in other cities. I like(d) African Americans; I was raised with zero racial prejudice. However, their neighborhoods were further east of the area where I worked.

 

[Rescued One]

I worked very near the White House in April 1968. My future husband (not engaged yet) was one of the soldiers sent to keep the peace in DC. I rode the bus into DC for transportation. It was very weird. I don't know where everyone was. The streets were very empty and you'd see a lone soldier in front of each liquor or jewelry store on K Street. The riots weren't as bad as in other cities. I like(d} African Americans; I was raised with zero racial prejudice. However, their neighborhoods were further east of the area where I worked.

 

[mourningdove~]

I worked very near the White House in April 1968. My future husband (not engaged yet) was one of the soldiers sent to keep the peace in DC. I rode the bus into DC for transportation. It was very weird. I don't know where everyone was. The streets were very empty and you'd see a lone soldier in front of each liquor or jewelry store on K Street. The riots weren't as bad as in other cities. I like(d} African Americans; I was raised with zero racial prejudice. However, their neighborhoods were further east of the area where I worked.

I wasn't raised with racial prejudice either. As a child, I didn't personally know any African Americans. We lived on the West side of Cleveland, and they lived on the East. (The only black persons I ever saw in the neighborhood were the black trash men that came thru the neighborhood weekly.) My brave grandfather served alongside brave African American men in WW2. No prejudice was passed down to me thru family lines. I'm grateful for that. It may have helped, too, that my family practiced religion. I was raised Catholic, and the Catholic church didn't and doesn't promote racism.

Clinging to a personal faith in God was my way of coping with the scary events of the 60's. It is how I deal with the 'scary' events of today ...

 

[mourningdove~]

Where were you when these happened and how did you and your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, etc handle it?

Howzabout you?
Are you old enough to remember those assassinations in the 1960's?

 

[joymercy]

Yes, it was very traumatic for my young mind.

It was the very first time that I understood that people kill each other.

I never got that before.

My life involved playing with toys.

Murder was totally a new concept, literally

It just blew my mind and terrified me

 

[mourningdove~]

Yes, it was very traumatic for my young mind.

It was the very first time that I understood that people kill each other.

I never got that before.

My life involved playing with toys.

Murder was totally a new concept, literally

It just blew my mind and terrified me

I will tell you frankly ...
sometimes the bad things happening in the world today almost blow my mind.

So I get what you are saying.
Though as an innocent child, harsh things can become so very traumatic.
As adults, we have ways of coping ... like dependence on God and the faith He has given us.
But for a child? Yes, life's realities can be so very hard on them ...
especially for a sweet natured child.

 

[joymercy]

I was only 5 years old when I learned from the TV that people do this new thing called murder I had never even heard of.

My playing involved nurturing baby dolls. I had no concept of not being a care giver, changing clothes for my babies and pretend feeding them.

When Walter Cronkite started to cry, It destroyed me, the shock and grief were so very deep.

I could not find the words.

 

[Tuur]

We were at a doctor's office when JFK was killed. My father was there for a follow up to damage to both his hands, and, given the time of year, we waited in the car rather than be exposed to whatever happened to be going around. My father came out the back door and tapped on the window and told us Kennedy had been shot. We went in and listened to the radio. Nobody was pleased, but what little reaction I recall was stoic. It was like "Yes, this is a bad thing that shouldn't have happened, but it did." I clearly remember watching, on TV, Jack Ruby kill Oswald, and parts of Kennedy's funeral.

Maybe it was living in a rural environment and having seen the death of animals and going through visitation and funerals for members of the community, but I don't remember it being something difficult other than it was a bad thing.

I happened to be the only one watching TV when the news broke about Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination. That was on a Thursday. I don't know why we were home from school; Easter was on April 14 of that year so I don't think it was Spring Holidays. I went and told my parents, and they initially didn't believe it, but then went to the TV and saw what had happened. Reaction I recall was similar to JFK's.

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated, we were going to go to town for some reason. That, too, was on a Thursday, and my father was doing farm work. I convinced them to let me stay home and watch the coverage, and they did. Maybe, due to the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr, there was practically no reaction at all.

 

[mourningdove~]

Maybe it was living in a rural environment and having seen the death of animals and going through visitation and funerals for members of the community, but I don't remember it being something difficult other than it was a bad thing.

I think you may have something there!
Our life experiences can/will affect how we respond to things emotionally.

I was naive about much as a child, but having been raised in a big city ...
within a family with challenges ...
I was not unaware that people have problems, and sometimes do bad things.

 

[Rescued One]

When I was four, we lived in an apartment in Frankfurt, Germany. Someone (probably my Dad) bought us a set of blocks printed with doors and windows, etc. I thought it was really neat. I knew or was taught not to knock down what I was building, but next to our apartment was a lot of rubble. I wanted to know why. One of my parents told me there was a war. What in the world? I was too young to comprehend that, but the memory has stayed with me! That really puzzled me. WHY would adults do that?

 

[Rescued One]

We were at a doctor's office when JFK was killed. My father was there for a follow up to damage to both his hands, and, given the time of year, we waited in the car rather than be exposed to whatever happened to be going around. My father came out the back door and tapped on the window and told us Kennedy had been shot. We went in and listened to the radio. Nobody was pleased, but what little reaction I recall was stoic. It was like "Yes, this is a bad thing that shouldn't have happened, but it did." I clearly remember watching, on TV, Jack Ruby kill Oswald, and parts of Kennedy's funeral...

I remember watching Jack Ruby kill Oswald. It seemed surreal.