Braydon Waller Essays - United States, Geography Of Alabama

Braydon Waller U.S. History 3 rd hour April 15, 2015 The day the motorcade in Dallas Texas erupted into complete turmoil and ended in the assassination of the first Catholic president. John F. Kennedy being his day just as any other preparing for the public, being met at the airport by the Texas governor with flowers in hand, blue convertible ready to go. Unfortunately around 12:30 pm while motorcading down the people-lined streets, disaster struck. A moment in history that would be remembered by so many of our great nation. While interviewing my maternal grandmother, Mary Helen Kikolla maiden name Jordan, she recalled what it was like that Friday November 22 nd in the big town of Decatur Illinois. It was a typical day in the neighborhood of Dickinson Ave near Cantrell and 16 th streets. In the morning the ladies got their husbands off to work, kids to school, and began there housework for the day. For they were the normal in that time, housewives in the 60's. At that specific time of 12:30 pm my grandmother stated that she was probably putting my aunt down for a nap while making lunch for my grandfather who came home for lunch on his Staley lunch hour. My other aunt and uncle were at school at St. James at that time of day. My own mom, hadn't entered the family picture yet as she was born after 1963. My grandmother recalled that in the evening when the men returned to home from work days, many families gathered in the yards to discuss the horrible news of our President. The Catholic church even had a prayer vigil and the church was open for anyone that wanted to go pray. The weekend also brought sad news as the information for the funeral and more articles surfaced in the papers with sadness. During the weekend and days following, the children played as the adults talked about this historical event. On Monday following his death, many businesses were closed for mourning. My Grandmother has some newspapers that show that from 1963. And during this time people were wondering what Lyndon B. Johnson would be doing for our country. All this was covered in newspapers, magazines, the catholic newspaper and us news magazines that I have from her memorabilia. It was very interesting to find those artifacts. One of them even has coverage as when JFK was here in Decatur before at Decatur Airport when he was just a US Senator. When asked who she thought killed JFK, my grandmother said "why that Oswald man, that's what they say". The interview with my grandmother was very interesting and the articles that my grandfather had kept are in remarkable shape and have excellent information. And to sum up our interview I asked if she could remember anything else important and her comment was, " that's pretty good, I can't remember everything, I've slept since then." Grandma 86yrold