As radio coverage gave way to television, as the nation watched the slain president’s casket removed from Air Force One and the first image of Jacqueline Kennedy, still wearing the clothes that carried the bloodstains of her dead husband, Americans began a collective vigil by the light of their 17 inch screens. They worried about the Kennedy children. They watched as a procession carried the flag-draped coffin from the White House to the steps of the Capitol. They felt the weight of the casket born by servicemen who carried the coffin up the Capitol steps and into the rotunda. They wept some more when the first lady and her daughter, Caroline, approached the casket, knelt and kissed the flag draped over it. And, they recoiled in further shock as they saw the alleged assassin gunned down on live TV by Jack Ruby.
As he watched, Bill West wondered “what was happening to the country?” West, a member of the Woodstock Town Board at the time, had learned of the assassination while having lunch at Deanies with his wife Mary. “General shock,” was his reply when asked to characterize the reaction of Woodstockers during the course of that long weekend. West also underscored the notion that the assassination fell heavily on all — Republicans and Democrats. Whether you “agreed with his philosophy or not,” recalled the life-long Republican and former Woodstock Supervisor, “he was a pretty unique person — young and vital. He had charisma, style and grace.”
Like many Woodstockers, West also recalls watching events unfold through the sometime snowy images of broadcast television in the days before cable. At the time, if you were one of the lucky ones in Woodstock, you could possibly view three channels, depending on the size of your antenna and the direction it was pointed in. (Ironically, in the week prior to the assassination, the Woodstock Town Board, according to its minutes, approved leasing property at California Quarry to Kingston Cablevision as the first step towards bringing better reception to Woodstock.) Whatever the quality of the picture, however, few ventured far from the screen. Not only was this national tragedy unfolding before their eyes, but the medium of television was forging its place as the dominant force in American lives for the next half-century.
“We sat with trays in front of the TV so we wouldn’t miss a minute of it,” recalled Sehwerert. “My parents and sister and I were glued to the TV.” Echoing the same thought, Sara Mulligan also remembered being “glued” to the television in her house, “waiting for the next thing.” “No one spoke, no one called anyone.” That same, eerie quiet still pervades Janine Fallon-Mower’s memory of her own experience over the course of that weekend as she recalls, “seeing my father, we are in our living room, sitting close to the black and white TV, grey dress pants and white t-shirt. Shoulders hunched. There were no words spoken but I had an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.”
In person, Florence Peper, daughter of one-time Woodstock blacksmith, Henry Peper, was a woman of few words. And yet, for over 70 years, she wrote diligently in her diary each day. On Sunday, November 24 she penned the following, “we watched on TV all afternoon the changing of the casket of President Kennedy from the White House to the Capitol & the man held for shooting Pres. Kennedy was shot this afternoon & he is dead — Lee Oswald.”
There was a husband who asked much and gave much, and out of the giving and the asking wove with a woman what could not be broken in life, and in a moment it was no more. And so she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hands, and kissed him and closed the lid of a coffin.
On the same Sunday Florence Peper described in her diary, a telegram addressed to then Woodstock Town Supervisor Abe Molyneaux would arrive from Governor Nelson Rockefeller announcing a day of mourning on Monday, November 25 — the day Kennedy would be laid to rest on a hillside in Arlington. As a result, businesses along Mill Hill Road and Tinker Street would close. Businesses that carried still remembered names such as The News Shop, Cousins Home Appliances, Schneider’s, Miss Mary’s, Bonnies, Hilda Lightstone and more. The flag on the village green would continue to fly at half mast. Woodstock and the rest of the nation had a funeral to attend.
Thanksgiving would arrive in but a few days time. And, as Lynn Sehwerert noted, while there would be no “festive mood,” it would be a time when families mattered. The page would turn. Businesses and schools would reopen as Americans struggled to move through the holiday season and, eventually, into a new year. As the calendar changed, so too would the mood of the country. The young would see a partial return on their investment in innocence as, a few months later, the same black and white television sets that had brought so much tragedy now gave them The Beatles. In Washington, Lyndon Johnson pushed the landmark Civil Rights Act through Congress. In Woodstock, Albert Grossman, along with a young talent by the name of Bob Dylan, had arrived. Seeds were being planted. They would grow.
Though time and distance may work to have their way with our memories, the images and recollections of 50 years ago remain steadfastly in place for many. Ironically, as if to remind us further, a glance at this year’s calendar reveals that November 22, just as it did a half-century ago, falls, once again, on a Friday. There are, it seems, some dates history refuses to let us forget. Nor should it.
A piece of each of us died at that moment. Yet, in death he gave of himself to us. He gave us of a good heart from which the laughter came. He gave us of a profound wit, from which a great leadership emerged. He gave us of a kindness and a strength fused into a human courage to seek peace without fear.
(Author’s Note: With thanks to the Historical Society of Woodstock for access to Florence Peper’s diary, as transcribed by Carl Van Wagenen.)
Join the family! 
