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Joy over Catholic president, then sorrow

I remember like it was yesterday, and I can’t believe it will be 50 years. I was 12 years old in seventh grade at St. Paul of the Cross School in Park Ridge. The teacher made the announcement in the classroom that the president had been shot. We were all shocked, and “Oh no!” was heard by everyone. Then they wheeled in the TV on a big stand, and it was announced he had died. Everyone was crying and terribly sad; we just wanted to go home and be with our families.

Our whole house was crying and sad when I got home, and it was only a few years previous that I remember thinking how excited our family was when he was elected, the first Irish Catholic president, as my parents came from County Mayo and County Donegal in Ireland. I had been fortunate to be among the Irish Step Dancers who greeted the president in March 1962 along with other communities when he came to the O’Hare Airport dedication along with Mayor Richard J. Daley and then headed downtown for a parade. A great celebration that day — unlike the weekend of Kennedy’s funeral. We were all off school and watched it on TV, just sobbing. He was so young with a young wife and two small children. It was so much to comprehend for a 12-year-old.

I still shake my head in disbelief thinking of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Sen. Robert Kennedy. What dark, very dark days they were, and yet I still love our country and what we stand for. We pull together and move forward. God Bless America

Patricia Moore Fluhler

Palatine

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