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VIVID MEMORIES FROM AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
A King George County resident recalls the ceremonies that followed President Kennedy's deathDate published: 11/22/2006 By JIM HALL Lori Deem remembers the golden capsule of candlelight above John F. Kennedy's casket in the Capitol rotunda. She also remembers the expression on Jackie Kennedy's face as she passed before her in the funeral procession. "She looked like a little girl," Deem said. "She looked lost." John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 43 years ago today, and Deem was an eyewitness to much of what followed. She was curbside in Washington that weekend as the nation's capital fell silent in mourning. Grace Jorgenson, Deem's mother, had insisted that she and her 12-year-old daughter take a bus from Alexandria, where they lived, to downtown D.C., where the funeral activities took place. Jorgenson wanted her daughter to participate in history whenever possible. She took her out of school to go to the parade for astronaut John Glenn, and they stood beside the railroad tracks near Alexandria to see President Dwight Eisenhower. Today, Deem is the mother of two teenagers, a part-time student at the University of Mary Washington and a resident of King George County. In 1963, she was a seventh-grader, standing with her mother and 300,000 other mourners on a clear Sunday in November. Kennedy's body was returned from Dallas Friday night and was to lie in state inside the rotunda from Sunday afternoon until his burial Monday. The funeral procession marched from the White House to the Capitol along Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue, where Deem and her mother stood. What Deem remembers most about the procession was the silence. She heard no cars, no buses, no sirens, she said, only the soft weeping of the men and women around her. She knew the cortege was approaching when she heard the motorcycle escort. Then came the sound of muffled drums, 24 of them, echoing off the buildings. Next was the shuffling of shoes on the wide avenue, the Metropolitan Police unit, the military escorts, flag bearers and clergy. The president's flag-draped casket was on a caisson drawn by six gray horses. Deem remembers the creak of the caisson, the clop of the hooves and the clank of the horses' tack. Black Jack, the riderless gelding, walked behind the casket. "You could hear him breathing," she said. The limousines were last, bearing the family of the slain president. As the procession went by, people stood silently, hats in hand or saluting. "The silence was terrifying in a way," Deem recalled. "We were all holding our breaths." Later Deem and her mother waited in a 40-block line to pass by the casket in the rotunda. "As they were going by, you could see people's mouths moving," in silent prayer, Deem said. And the next day she and her mother returned to Washington to visit Kennedy's new grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Today Deem wonders how a city could be so silent. "To me it was amazing," she said, "to have all those people and the absence of sound." To reach JIM HALL:
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 11/22/2006
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