Mark Rotker: Eighth grade class meeting in the gym. Told to go home. Never forget Mr. Gene Aiello in his office doorway with a handkerchief wiping his eyes.
Rich Humbert: I was on Comm Center duty 9th Marines Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan. The whole base just stopped functioning for the next 24 hours. Sat around staring and grieving.
Jerry Reichert: I was driving between classes at St. John's and heard it on the radio. It is a big campus. I ran into Alumni Hall and yelled the President has been shot! Nobody had heard about it yet. I was shocked; still am.
Marilyn Monsrud Frese: I was working at an large insurance company in Garden City. When the news broke we all crowded into the lunch room and listened to the radio as details were coming in. The office then closed down early allowing us to all go home to watch the news on TV. What a terribly sad day! JFK was larger than life!
Kathy Stahlman Zinn: On Nov. 22, 1963, I had just gotten out of a class, just two months into my freshman year at Catholic University in Washington DC. Kennedy was our hero in so many ways. It was amazing to me, that I, and most of the campus, students, professors and administrators alike, instinctively headed to the huge basilica on our campus, "The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, to pray and grieve. There was nothing organized, and we all just sat or knelt there with each other, until we felt moved to leave. Later, I called home "to see if they were ok - it was as if the country had been attacked (well, it was.) Later that week many of us went downtown to witness the funeral parade - one of the saddest days, outside of losing my own family members, that I have known.
Dave Cahn: I was in a corridor of Detrich Hall at the Wharton School of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. I slumped to the floor and sat against the wall for quite a while. I didn't like Kennedy much, but he was my president, and I felt as if I, personally, had been attacked.
Merry Flamm Kubart: On Friday, November 22, 1963, I was working at The American Plan Corporation on Merrick Avenue, Westbury, LI when President Kennedy was assassinated. The department head made the announcement and said the company was closing for the day (and also several days the following week). I had a date to go to the movies and see Fantasia that night...after an hour or so, we decided to call it a night and go home. From that moment on, I sat in front of the TV and watched history in the making. We were watching when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald and couldn't believe what we were seeing. It was a time of great sorrow and mourning for all and also the first time I'd ever seen history in the making on TV.
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New York World-Telegram front page from the collection of Tom Filiberto, class of 1963
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