On an Urban Legend

Today marks the 60th year since Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. The history of the world, arguably, changed in those few moments when three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza on that November morning. In the intervening years, our culture has parsed and picked and delved into every nook and cranny of the event in an effort to make sense of something so absolutely senseless.

The purpose of this post isn’t to argue any of the theories about who actually pulled the trigger (There are certainly several red flags about the whole affair and about Oswald himself). Rather let’s compare the shooting of Kennedy in 1963 with the shooting of Abraham Lincoln 98 years prior, because the similarities between the two events have become the stuff of an urban legend.

Let’s start with the men themselves. Kennedy was elected in 1960, while Lincoln first was elected in 1860. But when they first ran for congress, both men were elected in ’46–one hundred years apart. They both were military veterans. Both men were heavily invested in civil rights. Each one was in his 30s when he married a woman in her 20s. Both lost a son while serving as president. Same number of letters in their last names. Both were shot on a Friday. Each was seated next to his wife. The presidential couples were with another couple at the time of the shooting (The Kennedys with Gov. and Mrs. John Connelly, the Lincolns with Major John Rathbone and his fiancé). The other man of the two couples was also injured in both attacks.

The vice-presidents who assumed the office after the shootings also have some things in common according to the legend. Both men were named Johnson. Both were from southern states starting with a “T”–Texas for Lyndon Johnson and Tennessee for Andrew Johnson. Both Johnsons were born 100 years apart, 1808 for Andrew and 1908 for Lyndon. Both men have the same number of letters in their names. They served in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as well before becoming vice-presidents.

The circumstances of each assassination also reveal some urban-legendary coincidences. They were both shot in public view, from behind, and both died from shots to the head. Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater, while Kennedy was shot in a car made by the Ford Motor Company, in a model called a Lincoln. Both shooters carried out their dastardly deeds from places where they worked (John Wilkes Booth worked as an actor often at Ford’s Theater). Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was later apprehended in a theater; Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was apprehended in a storehouse barn.

Finally, the assassins themselves have some shared characteristics or events. For example, each one has the same number of letters in their full names (15 letters each). They were both shot and killed before they could stand trial for the murders they committed. They were both southerners. Each was living in a boarding house when they shot the president.

Of course, like most urban legends, coincidences are just that–coincidence. One historian, to prove this point, made connections between Kennedy’s tragic death and the assassination of Mexican President Alvaro Obregon in 1928, for example. And some can argue that the trivialization of presidential murder dishonors the men who died and the lives which were forever altered by the heinous acts of violence.

But, 60 years on, perhaps the deep angst that still hangs around the death of John F. Kennedy might lead us to look for something less tragic, less disastrous, and, well, less sad to divert our gaze from that moment. And you have to admit that this particular urban legend has plenty to distract.

And, sometimes, especially on days like these, we desperately need distraction.

On an Inspection

The 1950s and early ’60 were a time in white middle class America when gender roles and rules of social decorum were fairly strictly defined and generally observed. Women wore hats and gloves to church and, often, even to the store; men wore suits to dinner and even to the movie theater. The reason some people watch reruns of the old TV show Leave It to Beaver today is to see what was the reality for many families at the time–a nostalgia for a period when the men worked while the woman stayed home and raised the kids, and people lived in nice suburban comfort. All of that changed, of course, in the 1960s beginning with such things as John Kennedy not wearing hats and the emergence of the counter culture that followed in the wake of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests. Allow all of that to serve as the societal background to the meeting of two women when one was moving into a new home in 1961.

Now, the two had met before because their husbands were in the same business although there were a generation apart. The occasion was that the younger woman’s husband had recently received a promotion, and an upgrade in the family’s living situation was in order. The older woman, the one who had been living in the home, was not happy that this younger woman and her husband and children were moving in to the place she and her husband had called home for almost a decade. But, social custom demanded that she take the younger woman on a tour of the house, an inspection of sorts. And it was no secret that the older woman disliked this younger woman.

To be fair, the older woman was, to be somewhat impolitic, frumpy. Not that she didn’t follow the social norms, because she did. In fact, she was, in many ways, the quintessential representative of that stolid, solid, middle class that represented much of white America. But the contrast between her and the younger woman was so, well, drastic. This younger woman followed the latest fashion. She had model good looks. And she spoke French! You could hardly find a greater difference between two women despite the fact that they both conformed to the social norms in every other way. And that included the prerequisite inspection of the home.

The younger woman, only two weeks away from a cesarean section and the birth of a boy, was still in a great amount of pain and discomfort. She had asked that the home inspection be postponed because of this, but the older woman insisted. Whether this was out of spite or out of jealousy or even simple lack of empathy is unknown. And when the younger woman came to the house, the older woman waited for her in a hallway. Rather than come towards the woman who was in obvious discomfort, the older woman simply stuck out her hand in unsmiling welcome and forced the younger woman to walk to her to shake it. She then led the hurting younger woman through the entire house, walking quickly, almost intentionally it seemed, so that, by the end of the one hour tour, the younger woman was almost in tears of pain.

As I said, the older woman really didn’t wish to leave the house. It wasn’t her choice, of course. Her husband was retiring, you see, and it was time for them to downsize. And perhaps that was part of the jealousy the older woman felt. Her husband’s useful work life was largely over, while this younger woman’s husband’s period of fruitful work was only then coming into season. We do know, for a fact, that the older one referred to the lovely and elegant younger woman snidely as “That College Girl.”

But we don’t know, for sure, why Mamie Eisenhower disliked Jackie Kennedy so much.

On Visiting An Old Home

Take it from someone who has rented far more than he has owned: Moving often from place to place stinks. And temporary homes can be difficult places to create family memories. Before us we have the case of a small family of four who lived in a house for three years before having to move out. The husband, wife, and two small kids moved into a place south of Baltimore in the early 1960s because of the husband’s work. While there, the wife had lost an infant son, so there was that trauma the family went through while living there. On the other hand, the family also experienced some joy there, as families do, on holidays and birthdays and the like.

Then, in the third year there, the husband passed away suddenly. The young widow had to move, and she decided that she and the two children under the age of 6 should move in with family up north. The owners of the property were sympathetic to the tragic circumstances; they allowed the woman and her kids to take all the time they needed to pack up. However, knowing that she really couldn’t stay there (and another family waited for them to vacate), the woman managed to organize a move from the house within two weeks after her husband’s funeral.

Years passed.

As the children grew, the woman often thought of that house that had held such mixed memories for her. On the other hand, she also recognized that the place was the only house in which her kids shared any memories of their dad. So, she made arrangements to take her children, by then aged 13 and 10, back to the old house for a visit. She wrote to the then-occupants of the residence and asked if she and and the children could drop by sometime for a quick visit.

She received a warm letter in return welcoming the family back. And so it was, in 1971, that the widow–who had since remarried–and her two children went back to the house where they had lived almost 8 years earlier. Those occupants of the house welcomed them warmly because they understood that, even if the house was a temporary home, it was still home because of the memories made there, memories both good and bad.

The two children were taken in hand by the current occupant’s two older daughters. The four kids played with the family’s dogs while the adults visited. The widow quietly but sincerely thanked the occupants for being so accommodating in allowing them to intrude. The short visit concluded with good wishes, and when the family returned home, both children wrote letters of thanks back to the host family, telling them how wonderful it was to be in the only place where they remembered their dad.

The woman also penned a heart-felt thank you note.

“You can’t imagine the wonderful gift the your family gave me, and my children,” Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote to Pat Nixon.