Remembering the assassination of JFK

Kindergarten students drew

their rendition of 1963 events

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Retired District 88 kindergarten teacher Charlotte Anderson vividly remembers Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Generations of Americans remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they learned Kennedy had died.

Forty years ago, Anderson's afternoon kindergarten class assembled at 1 p.m. and had story time. Soon after that, an announcement came over the intercom that President Kennedy was shot while touring downtown Dallas in a motorcade.

Twenty minutes later, it was announced that Kennedy was dead.

"We talked about it," Anderson said. "One girl, Catherine Eckstein, said Vice President Lyndon Johnson would marry Jackie Kennedy so her children would have a daddy."

Gerri Wilfahrt, retired Journal production manager, recalled the immediate aftermath of the assassination. At the time, she lived near Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Electricity and telephone lines went dead right immediately after Kennedy's death was confirmed. Military personnel were restricted to the base for 24 hours.

Schools and businesses closed Monday, Nov. 25, the day of Kennedy's funeral in Washington, D.C.

A few days later, Anderson instructed her kindergartners to capture their impressions of the nation's ordeal in crayon drawings.

Renditions included a reddish flag on the ground, a stick man shooting a gun at another stick man, a building representing the Texas Book Depository (Lee Harvey Oswald. location when he reportedly shot Kennedy), a reddish man after he was shot, a stick man aiming a rifle at a face in a large car, the president and his wife in the car with red dots indicated where he was shot, and the funeral parade with an American flag over the horse-drawn casket, men carrying the casket.

New Ulm Chamber of Commerce employees Terry Sveine and Jenny (Manderfeld) Eckstein were third-graders at Holy Trinity Grade School in New Ulm 40 years ago.

Sveine remembered his teacher, Mrs. Ganske, was called out of the classroom. When she returned, her mood was very somber.

"She said 'Oh, no. Now the communists can attack us,'" Sveine recalled. "I remember getting out of school early. I watched the news on television all day. I remember being confused and thinking, why would the communists want to come to New Ulm?

"I thought about the tunnels between the Catholic schools that were also Civil Defense shelters. I wondered if we'd have to go into the tunnels."

Eckstein remembered wondering who would run the country.

Dorothy Byer of New Ulm was at home.

"I thought it couldn't and shouldn't happen in this country," Byer said.

Mary Bezdichek of New Ulm remembered the havoc and turmoil of the moment.

"It was a very sad day," Bezdichek said. "The Kennedys had a lot of charisma."

Bob Burgess, director of the Brown County Museum, was in his final year of grade school at St. Mary's in Le Center. He heard the news from a student who went home for lunch.

"We watched television the rest of the day. Time stood still," Burgess said.