The Day President Kennedy Saw Me

In September 1961, my father was hospitalized at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas for tests.  An enlarged pancreas was discovered and he was immediately scheduled for surgery.  They removed a tumor that initial tests indicated was benign.  On September 25, 1961 (my 20th birthday)  I got a message to call his surgeon.  I went  to a phone booth outside the hospital, deposited a nickel for the call and dialed the number.  The doctor came on the line and said that he wanted me to call because he wasn't sure how Mother would take the news.  He then told me that more extensive tests of the tumor indicated that it was malignant and Daddy had, at most, six months to live.

There were no intensive care units back then.  Critically ill patents were in private rooms and the patient's family employed private nurses to sit with the patients.  Since we didn't know how long Daddy would be hospitalized there, Mother and I had some decisions to make.  We were living in Gainesville, sixty miles north of Dallas on I35.  We decided that I should drop out of college for the semester.  She and I got a room in a boarding house across the street from the hospital so that we could be with Daddy for two "shifts."  She stayed with him from 7:00 a.m. to mid-afternoon, I stayed with him from mid-afternoon until a private nurse came on duty for the 11:00 p.m. - 7:00 a.m. shift.  That's the background.  Now for the story.

So here I was 20-years-old at or around the hospital 24/7.  Of course, I was concerned about Daddy but it was a pretty boring life for a 20-year-old.  Two days after Daddy's diagnosis and poor prognosis, Sam Rayburn, otherwise known as "Mr. Speaker" and "Mr. Sam." received the same diagnosis and prognosis.  He was in a room two floors above Daddy.  Mr. Sam was a bachelor from Bonham, Texas, and had represented that district in the House of Representatives for  48 years and had served as Speaker of the House  for seventeen years.  He was one of the most powerful political figures of his time.

Because of his prominence, the hospital made accommodations for press presence in an anteroom off the main lobby near the elevators.  Representatives of the print and broadcast media from around the nation were there from early morning until late at night.  It will not surprise those of you who know me well to learn that I immediately made friends with all the reporters who were assigned to stay at the hospital to monitor the Speaker's condition.  Once the word got out about his condition, a parade of Washington and Texas dignitaries and other prominent people began.  They set up an area where the visitors could hold a press conference. Each morning I would get a cup of coffee and go to the press room to hang out and to see who was going to visit that day.

Former President Harry S. Truman  at Baylor Hospital 10/13/61

Lyndon and Lady Byrd Johnson exiting elevators after visiting 

Mr. Rayburn 10/6/61

I got to meet many of the visitors.  Sometimes the reporters told  them that my father was suffering from the same condition eliciting sympathy from the dignitaries and they would stop to talk to me.  Among those I got to meet were Lyndon and Lady Byrd Johnson, President Harry S. Truman, John and Nellie Connoley (He was Secretary of the Navy then), Pierre Salinger, lots of members of the House, Senate, Cabinet, etc. 

On the morning of October 9, I made my usual stop by the press room.  Everyone was abuzz.  It hadn't been announced publicly and possibly wouldn't be, but President Kennedy was coming to visit Mr. Sam that very afternoon.  Air Force One would arrive mid-afternoon and would leave as soon as the president finished his very brief visit with the speaker.   WOW!  I was going to get to see President Kennedy.

I immediately returned to our room in the boarding house to wash my hair and do some wardrobe planning. I had to look my best just in case I got to meet the president.  I had brought my new brown sheath dress with me.  I'd wear that with my three-inch spike heels..  Pantyhose had not been invented yet.  I wore nylon stockings that were held up by a garter belt.  This is the appropriate time to give a physical description of myself on that day.  I was slightly over six feet tall when wearing no shoes and I weighed no more than 125 pounds soaking wet.  As was frequently said,  "I was a tall drink of water." When I think back on that day now, I wonder if I looked freakish in the form-fitting dress and heels that elevated my height to 6'3".  To add to the picture, big, teased hair was the style.  My hairdo probably added a couple of more inches.

Once I was ready I went back to the press room and learned that it was being closed to everyone but credentialed press.  Daddy and Mr. Sam were in the old, original part of the hospital and its entrance was set far back from the street..  A few years earlier a huge multi-story women's and children's wing had been attached on the north  side of the original building.  It could be entered from a side street with only about a 30 or 40 foot walk from the curb to the entrance.  Security had decided that the president should enter and exit there and walk through the hospital rather than make the long, exposed walk into the main building.  Although no public announcement had been made, word of his visit had leaked out and people were gathering across the street from where he would enter.

Off I went to get a good viewing spot on the front row.  They already had restricted traffic inside the women's and children's wings to the side street.  I made a walk that I would repeat a few hours later.  I exited the main entrance and walked across the yard  around the new wing.  There were saw-horse type barricades along the sidewalk that led into the building and along the curb across the street from the entrance.  About 15-20 people had gathered behind the barricades across the street.  No one was allowed along the sidewalk.   I took up my station on the front row up against a barricade.

I had been there several minutes when a taxi pulled up and a man in a light tan trench coat got out.  He walked behind the barricade and stood next to me.  He said that he was a Dallas business man who had just arrived at Love Field (then Dallas's only passenger airport) from a business trip.  He heard that the president was arriving and decided to come to see him.  Right!  Even as young and naive as I was, I knew he was no Dallas businessman.  Number one:  Dallas men did not wear tan raincoats at that time.  Number two: Dallas businessmen did not ride in taxis.  Number three:  He had a strong Yankee accent.  The way he was scanning the small crowd verified to me that he was Secret Service.

He and I visited while we waited for the president.  According to news reports from that day, Air Force One arrived at Love Field at 3:42 p.m.  The president arrived shortly after 4:00.  He was whisked into the hospital along with the two men who were in the limo with him.  I barely got a good look at them.  I commented that I hadn't even been to my daddy's room to visit him that day.  The "Dallas businessman" said that the president was scheduled to stay with Mr. Sam around 40 minutes and suggested that I had time to run up to Daddy's room to say hello.  I decided to do that.

President Kennedy leaving Baylor Hospital

While I was in Daddy's room, we had a brief rain shower.  As soon as it quit, I headed back outside to see the president as he left the hospital.  Little did I know that I was about to experience the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.  As I retraced my steps around the women's wing, I heard the small crowd begin to cheer.  The president was leaving and I was going to miss him.  I began to run  (in the tight dress and three-inch heels).  I rounded the corner and ran toward the barricade along the sidewalk.  The president emerged from the building as I neared the barricade.  Just then,  I hung the spike heel of my shoe in a runner of the wet St. Augustine grass.  Down I went.  I skidded under the barricade on the wet grass and stopped at the feet of the president and the two men who were accompanying him.  My shoe came off and flew over the barricade landing on the grass near the sidewalk.  I looked up at the president from my prone position lying on my stomach.

The man who was walking on the president's left stopped to help me up.  He then picked up my shoe and handed it to me.  I held it by the heel as if it were a cup handle.  As President Kennedy started to get into his limousine, the press began to yell questions at him.  He stopped and before he answered he turned and looked directly at me making eye contact.  There I stood holding my shoe with grass stains on the front of my dress.  One of the garter straps had come undone so the right stocking was sagging.  The stocking on the other leg had a huge hole in the knee.  He asked, "Are you okay?"   I replied, "Oh yes, Mr. President."  He turned to the press, answered one question, the man who helped me up joined him.  They got into the limo and drove off.  Air Force One departed Love Field at 5:04 p.m.

So now you know about the day that President Kennedy saw me.  I went back to Daddy's room and cried as I told him the story.  He laughed and laughed and then said, "Oh my God, Carolyn.  You're going to be on the evening news."  I was afraid to watch, but the television stations were kind and didn't run any pictures of me.


Sam Rayburn died on November 16.  There is a very famous picture of four U. S. presidents attending  his funeral in Bonham.  We got to bring Daddy home for a few weeks.  He passed away on December 7, 1961, the twentieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor. 

President John F. Kennedy, future president Lyndon Baines Johnson, former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman

525,600 Minutes

I sold Rick's truck on Saturday.  I had only looked inside it once since he died.  It just sat in the backyard.  Sometimes Rick's cat, Bud, would sleep on top of it. I realize that I procrastinated about selling it because it is one more admission that he is gone forever.

How could it possibly be a year!  Surely, it was only a couple of weeks ago.  No, no, that's not right.  It's been more like a century.  I have always been fascinated by time and how it is compressed at times and draws out forever at other times.  Ever since Rick died, I've had this notion that once I made it through the first year, things would get easier.  However, it has been almost two months over a year now and acceptance of his death may be greater, but there are still some rough times.  I know this is cliche, but it literally feels as if part of me is missing.  It's like there's a big void.  I doubt the void will ever go away completely, but maybe it will get smaller as time goes by and I grow and change.

My niece, Donna, and her husband, Jorge, invited me to spend the anniversary of his death with them at their their beautiful country place near La Grange. On the drive there, I did a lot of thinking about the past year.  In so many ways it has been a year of growth for me.  I have done things I've never done before and assumed responsibilities that were always Rick's.  I've decided that husbands are definitely under rated.  He did so many little things that I just took for granted.  There are two examples from just yesterday.  I renewed the registration on my car on Friday (one of his jobs) and learned that I needed new license plates.  Yesterday I took the old ones off and put the new ones on.  That also was one of his jobs.  He always kept my kitchen knives perfectly sharp.  He would usually sharpen them when I was away from the house because the sound of the blade on the whet stone was like the screech of chalk on a chalkboard to me.  A few weeks before he died he bought an electric knife sharpener that he stored on a shelf and never used.  Yesterday I sharpened my kitchen knives with it.  I truly think he anticipated his death and did several things like that to ease my life when he was gone.

I subscribe to GriefShare Daily Emails.  Messages are sent daily for a year.  Sometimes I find the message very helpful and at other times I feel it doesn't relate to me at all.  I still find the advice of friends the most helpful.  My daughter, Amy, her husband, Ray, and six-year-old Katherine and four-year-old William are still living with me.  For reasons totally unrelated to Rick's death, they moved into our house the morning before Rick died.  This situation has been difficult for all of us and is even more difficult because of Rick's death.  Amy and I have both been going through our individual throes of grief .  But...they need their own place and I need my own space.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm happy that I have been able to help, and the children are so dear to me.  But as one of my widowed friends said, "When you are reinventing yourself, you need time by yourself."  I think that is so true, and I've had very little time by myself the past 14 months.  I won't be able to make a decision about whether I want to continue to live in this house until I have lived in it alone for some weeks, if not months.  On the other hand, I haven't been as lonely as I would have been if they weren't here.   However, I've definitely learned that one can be lonely in a room full of people--sometimes that's the loneliest place of all.

Donna and Jorge were the perfect people for me to be with those few days in May.  Donna and I shopped on Friday, and without the benefit of any booze got downright silly on Friday night.  After soaking in the hot tub, we decided to change into our nighties and watch a chick flick.  That afternoon Donna bought me a broad brimmed black and white striped hat.  It was lying on the couch when I came out into the living  room after changing.  I decided the hat would look quite nice with my new black nightie so I put it on.  When Donna came out and saw me with it on, she had to take a picture.  Then she decided she would put on her black nightie get a hat.  The silliness began.  We put on bright lipstick and rouge, hung chandelier crystals from our ears and tried on several different "looks."  I'm including some pictures that Jorge took of us.  I think the only reason he put up with our silliness is that he got to watch his rugby game instead of the chick flick.


On Saturday night, (the actual anniversary of his death was at 11:30 p.m. on May 14) Jorge and I spent the whole evening in the hot tub.  Their house is out in the country so it is really dark at night.  The skies were clear, the stars were plentiful and the light was provided by a gibbous moon.  Donna didn't get in the hot tub but sat beside it and served as the bar tender ferrying wine to Jorge and Tanquery and tonics to me.  We talked a little, cried a little and mainly looked at the beautiful sky while listening to Jorge's "old standards" music.  It was the perfect way to observe the anniversary.  Rick would have approved!!!

Jane, you are so right.  I am reinventing myself.  I don't know who exactly is going to emerge, but so far I mostly like this new me.  I wrote the following poem in 1984.  It is far more pertinent to my life now than it was when I wrote it.

WAS/AM/WILL BE

Do I merge?

When?  Where?  How?

It's all here now.

Not only my present and my past,

But my future.

I am unfolding on the brink.

And always I am

The edge

Of the me that was

And the me that is to be.

Thanks to all of you who have hung in there with me these past months.  That includes old friends and the new ones I am making.  Your love has supported me far more than you will ever know.  Please keep hanging in there while we all discover the me that is to be. 

Tuesday, July 19, Addendum:

Beautiful Zoe, our 14-year-old granddaughter, commented on this post on Facebook.  Her comments were so beautiful and  I want everyone to be able to see them:

I liked how you talked about the little things that Grandpa did that you took for granted. Sometimes, I do that too. Or when I'm singing to myself a song that I know he used to sing, I think about him singing The Sound Of Music when I'd watch it at your house. And every time we go to the store to get ice cream, I think of all the times Grandpa would take Ian and I to Arlan's and let us pick out a pint of ice cream. Looking back now, I never realized that those little things would be the things I remembered when he passed away. I guess you never really think of the little moments until that's all you have left. So I know that no matter where I go, or what I'm doing, something will remind me of Grandpa. As if he's still here. I'm truly thankful for those memories too.