Ellen Fitzpatrick

A Letter to Jackie

Ellen — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:13:08 +0000

The letter, 10-year-old Lane wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy on Dec. 6, 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was selected by editor Ellen Fitzpatrick…Read more

Batesville woman’s message published in book

Jennifer Johnston Canfield — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:16:17 +0000

Debbie Blank
Assistant Editor

Everyone who was alive then remembers where they were when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed Nov. 22, 1963.

Batesville resident David Paul, then 10, was sick and home from school in Blue Ash, Ohio. “I pretty well sat beside the TV set a lot along with Mom. Mom did cry when it happened.”

His wife, Rita (Moll) Paul, recalls, “That’s the day the whole world cried.”

Despite the chores involved with moving to Batesville shortly after, the president’s death weighed heavily on the mind of his mother, Rose Lee Paul. Read more…

Street Stories: Letters to Jackie

Ellen — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:13:18 +0000

Local woman’s letter selected for JFK book

SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI/WNAC) – A letter from the past. In a time of emails and texting, a South Kingstown woman’s written words are selected to help tell a tragic story that some say changed the nation.

Walt Buteau has more with this week’s Street Story.

Letters to Jackie collection spurs memories

Ellen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:28:10 +0000

March 21, 2010

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

John Hallett recalls being terribly shocked and saddened on Nov. 22, 1963, the dark day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

“I was absolutely devastated by the news,” says the Medford resident. “I was with a friend when we heard it on the news. It really shocked us. Nobody expected something like that to happen. It was terrible for our country.”

At the time, Hallett was 18, a freshman in college who was in his Coalinga, Calif., home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Wanting to express his condolences, he sat down and wrote a short letter to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

“I told her how sad I was that this happened to her family and our nation,” he says. “I wrote that he was a great man and that it was such a worldwide loss. I also told her that what happened in Dallas didn’t represent the feelings of the country.”

His letter was one of roughly 1.5 million letters of sympathy the president’s widow would receive following JFK’s death. Most of the letters were destroyed but some 200,000 were kept for the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where they gathered dust until historian Ellen Fitzpatrick began pouring over them to write “Letters to Jackie: Condolences From a Grieving Nation.” Read more

Seattle woman reflects on letter sent to Jackie Kennedy

Jennifer Johnston Canfield — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:16:50 +0000

SEATTLE - She wrote the letter more than 46 years ago. From Ethiopia, Ann Owens felt the pain and shock of President John F. Kennedy’s death and put pen to paper in a touching letter to her mom.

Owens writes, “Dear Mom, Even the Ethiopian sky is in mourning today and it was raining last night when President Kennedy died… I feel now as if a member of my family had died. In a very real sense he was our idol; he is the reason for our being here — his idealism, his courage.”

Owens was 25 at the time and teaching English in the Peace Corps read more…