In a four-part series, Preservation Arlington looks back at the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which had a major impact on Arlingtonians, and all Americans, and which culminated in Kennedy’s funeral, which indelibly changed the face of Arlington National Cemetery. For this first piece, we asked three Arlingtonians to tell us where they were during that fateful time. Where were you? Leave your memories in the comments.

“To Have it All Wiped Out…”

Bill and Ellen Bozman were both interns in public administration, a precursor program to the Presidential Intern Program, which was conducted by the National Institute of Public Affairs. They met while working at the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget).

After moving to Arlington in 1949, they lived in several different places, first in the Barcroft apartments and ultimately to a home of 50-plus years near Walker Chapel. At the time Bill was working at the Department of Commerce as Assistant Administrator for the Area Redevelopment Administration (now known as the Economic Development Administration) – which was one of Kennedy’s first domestic initiatives. The agency worked to create jobs in areas of high unemployment, and Appalachia was their primary target. The Appalachian Regional Commission was one of the results of this initiative.

When Kennedy was killed, “it made an imprint on my psyche in that we had invested so much in this young president,” Bill remembers. “To have it all wiped out was devastating…a terrible let-down for those who were in government at the time. It was terribly depressing that we lost someone that we had all looked to, to lead us to a much better society.”

“At Least Ten People Deep”

Lifetime Arlington resident Carol Fontein was taking a test in her girl’s health class at Stratford Junior High School. As no doubt happened in many schools around the country, a teacher suddenly walked into the room, summoned the health teacher, and then they both left the classroom. A few minutes later, Carol says, a clearly upset teacher returned to the classroom.

All classes were eventually cancelled, and all the kids were sent home. Carol remembers going home and being glued to the television in the family room as she and her whole family watched Walter Cronkite all weekend.

Carol attended Kennedy’s funeral, having convinced her parents to drive her downtown. She found a spot on Constitution Avenue, near the Capitol and the Upper Senate Park. The crowds were thick at that point – at least ten people deep, she says – as the caisson went by on its way to Arlington Cemetery. She made it to the cemetery again a few years later as part of a field trip from school.

“What is Going On?”

As a freshman at American University, Jerry Long was getting help from an English professor for one of his papers when a girl ran into the room and yelled, “The president is shot.” As word traveled through the campus, Jerry could hear people moaning and crying. Most of the AU students migrated to the Spiritual Life Center on campus for remembrance and fellowship.

On Saturday, November 23rd, Jerry and his roommates and their girlfriends went down to the White House in the pouring rain to pay their respects to the fallen president. While sitting around in their dorm room on Sunday, they heard that Oswald had been shot and Jerry remembers thinking, “Yikes — what is going on?”

On Monday, the day of the funeral, Jerry walked through Rosslyn and over to Arlington Cemetery, where he sat on the curb, right as the road turns turns above the grave spot. He got there at 7:00 am and stayed until the funeral. As a young college student, he was amazed as great world leaders walked right in front of him, including Charles de Gaulle, Haile Selassie, Konrad Adenauer, Harold Mcmillan and Hayato Ikeda — “up front and personal.”

He walked downhill and joined the crowd behind the ceremony. Walking back to AU, he was cold and numb from the weather and all that had happened. Although he hadn’t been a big Kennedy fan, but a loyal Hubert Humphrey democrat, Jerry says the assassination nevertheless “marked my freshman year,” and he never forgot it.