president JFK in motorcade

Fifty years later, remembering the unforgettable day of Nov. 22, 1963


open book

The 1964 edition of the Ceer yearbook included this memoriam page to President Kennedy. The yearbook is stored in the Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections & Archives at Leatherby Libraries.


The Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy became an historic event that seared itself onto the collective memory of a generation. As the world reflects and remembers the 50
th
anniversary of the assassination – and even
tweets
the week’s events – we asked some alumni and faculty on campus then to share their recollections of that day on what was then Chapman College.

We invite all alumni, faculty and friends to post their memories here as well.

Don Booth, professor, Argyros School of Business and Economics


“I had just finished teaching a class when someone told me the news.  I went to a room in Founders Hall, what is now called Roosevelt Hall, where we had a television set.  The room was packed and students were crying.  That was the beginning of a three day period of watching and wondering what it all would mean.”

William Hall, professor, founding dean and artistic director for the Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts


“In those days the dean would come in and sit in on your classes to see if you were teaching … He came in that day and I was teaching a music history class. I was leaping up to the chalkboard and jumping back to the piano. All this time I was worried what the dean was thinking. At the end of class he came up and had tears in his eyes and said ‘President Kennedy has been killed.’ I thought oh my God.  He was sitting there the whole time waiting to tell me the news.”

Ann Wallace Fisher ’64


“Sandee White Gladson Mirell ‘64 and I had gone to a local bookstore that morning.  I don’t remember exactly how we learned the news, whether from the car radio as we returned to campus or from someone on campus.   Classes were cancelled for at least that afternoon and perhaps longer than that.  Everyone was in shock and mourning.  For days, we watched the television for reports, so sad for what had happened.  President Kennedy had inspired many, and especially our generation, with the notion of service, the Peace Corps being one good example.  Besides being a horrible tragedy, I think most of us felt we had lost a personal hero.”

Jacqueline L. Norwood Diachun ’64


“I was student teaching at an elementary school.  I was on the playground with the third grade class.  Over the PA system teachers were asked to bring the children inside and then the teachers were called to the office to find out the news.  I do remember as many do that we were glued to the TV for all the time up to and including the funeral.”

Dawn Bonker

1 comment

  • Sandee (White) Mirell class of 1964

    Ann Fisher just contacted me re: memories of the day Kennedy died. As she says, we were together when we heard the news. Frozen in my memory. is the picture of Ann’s car radio which I was staring at in disbelief. What I also remember is that when we returned to campus, it was eerily quiet; practically no one was outside on campus.Classes had been cancelled. I remember standing in front of Wilkinson Hall overhearing two professors talking. I don’t remember who they were, but I remember that one of them was comparing Johnson to Kennedy – unfavorably. Kennedy was considered a “statesman” by the speaker and Johnson was not. Subsequent History has proven that Johnson really got more accomplished in the country than JFK did, but in that moment there could not have been anything more shocking to hear – except maybe Pearl Harbor or an invasion of aliens. It was a collective sock to our national gut.

    slynnmirell@gmail.com

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