I
was in sixth grade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. My family
lived in Berkeley, California. I was
home ill that fateful day with yet another bout of chronic tonsillitis.
As
I watched morning television at 10:20 am with my 3-year old younger brother, KTVU
(Oakland) interrupted Miss Nancy’s Romper Room. We heard shocking news that the
President had been shot. (I lived on the West Coast. If you lived on the East
Coast, it was 1:20 pm when Walter Cronkite interrupted the daytime soap opera,
As the World Turns, to tell you this horrific news.)
I called to my mother and she rushed to the
television from the kitchen. Shortly, we
joined stunned neighbors gathering outside in the driveways.
This
scene is as vivid as yesterday to me. My family had just moved from Boston a
few years earlier in 1959. Ours was a fiercely democratic, union-loyal
household – my step-father was secretary-treasurer of the local AFL-CIO and a
member of the typographer’s executive council. When I was eight years old I stood
on the downtown corner in Berkeley with my family and watched a hopeful John F.
Kennedy waving to us from his motorcade as he cruised through town. I waved back
and hollered with thousands of others along his route on Shattuck Avenue. Later
that year, our family watched the 1960 presidential election returns early in
the evening at dinner time. California time.
Although
the actual election results were incredibly close (the tightest race since
1916), Kennedy was ahead early in the evening after the East Coast polls
closed. Throughout the evening Nixon picked up votes in the Midwest and West
Coast. California, in fact, voted for their hometown boy and Nixon picked up
all 32 of my state’s electoral votes. San Francisco’s East Bay, however, went
to Kennedy. My family was ecstatic with joy when we were told of his national
victory the next morning.
It
was just a few years later and the Kennedy years brutally ended.
We
all were glued to the television throughout that weekend. JFK was killed on a
Friday and President Lyndon Johnson declared the day of the funeral, Monday, a
national day of mourning. Even as an 11-year old, I realized that the world had
changed that fateful November.
A
few months later, in the summer of 1964, my family had recently moved to the
golden-hilled Bay Area suburbs. Parade Magazine featured a story on Jackie
Kennedy who was beginning to fundraise for the JFK Presidential Library. The
Parade weekly supplement was a favorite of mine; it arrived inside our weekend newspaper.
Just weeks before he was assassinated, Kennedy had chosen a spot next to the
Graduate School of Business in Cambridge overlooking the Charles River; the
presidential library was going to be built on the campus of Harvard. Kennedy
felt strongly that his personal effects should be included in the records of
his presidency and for that reason “museum” would be added to the library name.
The
tradition of official presidential libraries began with Franklin Roosevelt. They were and are part of the National
Archives and Records Administration in the United States. Each president after
FDR has had a presidential library built through a foundation. Today, there are thirteen in total (including
Barack Obama’s which has begun its funding stage; it currently is administered
by the Obama Foundation.)
After
President Kennedy’s assassination, his family and friends were tasked with a
building this memorial to JFK: the library. Mrs. Kennedy took charge and met
with architects, many of those meetings in the Kennedy compound on the Cape. Jackie
and others began the fundraising campaign. It was immediately successful due to
the fact that the world was still mourning the president. Over $4.3 million was
pledged within months. Large donations came from foundations and from
organizations in other countries. Thousands more were received in small
donations from the public.
That
summer of 1964, I read Jackie Kennedy’s appeal for her husband’s presidential
library in Parade magazine. I decided to hold a car wash to raise some money to
donate to the cause. I enlisted skeptical neighborhood girlfriends, got
permission from the gas station at the end of my street (to use their water,
space and hose), made some signs, gathered some sponges and soap, and washed
cars for several hours during the morning and afternoon. In the end, I sent $11.45
off to Mrs. Kennedy with a personal note hoping for the success of the library.
It included the passion of my own young grief for President Kennedy.
By
December of 1964, just one year after JFK was killed, a $10 million goal was
reached and architect I. M. Pei had been personally chosen by Mrs. Kennedy to
design the library. After only one more
year, $20 million had been pledged.
By
the early 70s, however, Robert Kennedy, President of the Library Corporation
had been assassinated and the Harvard location in Cambridge was found to be a
troublesome spot due to some squabbles over MBTA land and the hope of combining
forces with the JFK School of Government. Costs had risen and Cambridge
residents and officials were concerned about traffic in the area. Architect Pei
was asked to abandon his choice for stone for the alternative concrete to help cut
the rising costs.
Finally,
in 1977, plans at Harvard were abandoned and the present Columbia Heights site
was chosen and groundbreaking finally began. The costs were kept to $20.8
million, thanks to Pei’s changes, and the building was completed in 1979, built
from concrete and glass overlooking Boston and the ocean. Caroline, John Jr.,
President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward Kennedy attended the dedication.
Today,
in 2017, the Library is joined by the Massachusetts State Archives (1985) and
the Edward Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate (2015). Columbia
Point is also home to the University of Massachusetts – Boston.
Normally,
the Morrill Memorial Library is closed one Friday each June when library staff
attend workshops and/or hire a speaker for an entire day of enrichment for the
library staff. This year for our staff development day we were closed for the
new carpeting project. We spent three days last week visiting other libraries
and attending a workshop at the Minuteman Library Network training center. On the
last day, Friday, June 10th we toured the JFK Presidential Library and Museum
and his 100th birthday exhibit. We ended the day at the State Archives
and Commonwealth Museum.
It
was terrific to take the time with our tour guide to learn more about the JFK
library. I asked a tour guide if perhaps letters to Mrs. Kennedy were saved in
the archives and if perhaps the donations were recorded. He suggested that I
could to write to the librarians and archivists. It certainly would be thrilling
to see my 11-year old handwriting and my personal note to Jackie Kennedy noting
my own contribution to this important library.
The
Morrill Memorial Library has passes to both the JFK Library and Museum and the
Edward Kennedy Institute. Admission is free to the Archives and Commonwealth
Museum. All three share a parking lot. They are so very worthy of your visit.
