In 1963, I had just graduated from high school and remember John F. Kennedy so well from his campaigning in a small town in Wheeling, WV. I went to a Catholic school and since JFK was a Catholic, everyone at our high school felt that we had a special bond. I remember him so well, shaking the hand of a future President, in that small little town, when he visited at the McLure House. And, I remember that day in November 1963 as I worked as a Secretary at my first job for a trucking company and my boss came back from lunch and said “the President’s been shot”. I, and everyone else in my office, sat in horror at those words. The days that followed were unexplainable. All the news clips that we see today on TV about that week I saw for the first time in 1963. I saw on Live TV when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. It was a day I will always remember.

And, on 9/11, I was again working in an office when a co-worker had been listening to her radio and she said a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York…and then again, when the second plane crashed into the other tower. I ran home and got my small TV so we could watch the events of the day on TV. It was shocking, just as the day in 1963 was shocking. We were seeing first hand what was happening in New York. The horror of that day is still imbedded in my mind.

I am now a grandmother and fear for what will occur as my grandchildren grow up. What do they have to look forward too. It scares me to think of what may happen in the future and what they may have to look forward to.

I will never forget those days in 1963 and in 2001…they will forever be imbedded in my mind.