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