This story about the Kennedy family begins at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His 10-mile motorcade was entering downtown Dallas, passing through Dealey Plaza, when gunfire broke out. The shots came from Lee Harvey Oswald, a new hire at the Texas School Depository, working in the building and firing out an upper-floor window. Two shots fatally struck the president and the motorcade rushed to Parkland Hospital. President Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.
Within hours, law enforcement officers had arrested Oswald as the shooter. On Sunday morning, Nov. 24, Oswald was being escorted to court and was shot on live national TV by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
The day of the shooting, I was working in the back shop of The Craig Daily Press when I heard the Associated Press newswire machine exploding in the newspaper’s front office. Bells were ringing, and I rushed to see a message being printed out. “President Kennedy was shot in Dallas today.”
I raced across the street and borrowed a TV from the local hardware store, where the tragedy of his death unfolded. Jackie Kennedy stayed with her husband’s body during the flight to Washington, D.C. . The swearing-in of Vice-President Lyndon Johnson as the new president on the airplane. Later in the week, the historic funeral march, the riderless horse, the family walking, and the Arlington Cemetery burial for the very popular President John F. Kennedy.
August of 1966. Photo by Bob Sweeney, Craig Daily Press
Tragedies for the Kennedy family would not end in Dallas. Robert “Bobby” F. Kennedy was seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 1968 when he was fatally shot in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan on June 6, 1968. Kennedy had been his brother’s campaign manager in 1960, and his brother appointed him the 64th Attorney General, serving until the end of 1964 when he took office as a United States Senator in 1965.
Kennedy married Ethel Skahel of Greenwich, Conn., in 1950, and the couple had 11 children. The third child born was son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now 69 and seeking to be the Democrat nominee for president in 2024, or he may run as a third-party candidate. So far, President Biden’s campaign has refused a Kennedy/Biden debate.
Now, to my connection to the Kennedy family and a brief but pleasant experience that my wife Gerri and I had with Bobby and Ethel Kennedy on the riverbanks of the Yampa River in far Northwest Colorado.
Again, the AP wire service informed me that the Kennedy family would take a riverboat trip down the Yampa River, leaving at the “Gates of Ladore” canyon that afternoon. I rushed home, picked up Gerri, daughters Sharon and Saundra, and headed out 50 miles west of Craig on U.S. 40 to capture the news of the Kennedys arriving in Moffat County to float the river.
We reached a highway marker indicating a Ladore Road to the river and headed down a narrow dirt roadway. We encountered Bob Scott, an AP photographer assigned to cover the Kennedy’s trip. He was not injured when he wrecked his car driving off the road into a shallow ravine but needed assistance. He rode with us, heading a few more miles to the Yampa (Bear) River.
Just a few minutes after our arrival, we saw the caravan of vehicles coming down the road carrying the rubber river rafts and the members of the Kennedy
family.
I calculate that present-day candidate Robert Jr. was around 14 at this time in his life. The vehicles pulled up, and the Kennedys were surprised that there was a media presence in the boondocks, but they were friendly and pleasant. Wearing shorts, Ethel slipped on some jeans, and the kids scrambled into the bushes and rocks adjacent to the river. It is a place I would not have gone to because of the rattlesnakes. Fortunately, no one was bitten.
We visited while the boats were unloading; Bobby and Gerri especially hit it off well, and we wished them “bon voyage.” We took AP photographer Scott back to Craig for a flight to Denver.
We sent our photos to Senator Kennedy and received a personal note dated September 23, 1966. We have this photo of Gerri and daughters, proudly framed among family pictures. Only with the resurgence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a presidential candidate can we relive and cherish that day’s events and meeting the famous family many years ago.
Don’t discount the candidacy of Kennedy Jr., noted for his speech impediment diagnosed in 1996 as “spasmodic dysphoria,” for which there is no cure. Kennedy was 9 years old at the time of his uncle’s death in 1963 and 14 when his father was killed.
Kennedy, now 69, was born on Jan. 17, 1954, with a colorful background and early-day challenges. He is a Harvard graduate with a JD law degree from the University of Virginia and a long career defending the environment, especially waterways.
He was married to his first wife, Emily Black and divorced in 1994. He married his second wife, Mary Richardson, who passed away in 2012. Now married in 2014 to actress Cheryl Hines, who starred as Larry David’s wife on the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. Cheryl is 58 and doesn’t always agree with her husband’s viewpoints but remains in love with her husband, who apologizes to her often for his statements.
The older generation will remember the magical days of the Kennedys and the vibrance they brought to the White House and America.
The sheer Kennedy name is still influential today and could be a game changer.