A nation at a standstill

SouthCoast residents recall the shock of JFK's death

By JENNETTE BARNES, Standard-Times staff writer  

Editor's note: As the 40th

anniversary approaches, The

Standard-Times looks at the

memories and the controversies

surrounding the assassination of John

 F. Kennedy.

 Nearly 40 years before a terrorist

 attack plunged the nation into

 mourning and anger, a November

 day in 1963 put ordinary life on hold

 in a younger, more naive America .

 Ask anyone old enough to

 remember the assassination of

 President John F. Kennedy, and a

flood of images brings back that

afternoon.

The president died at 1 p.m.

Central Standard Time on Nov. 22,

and word spread rapidly via radio and

 television.

"People were walking around like

they were waiting for the bus,

crying," Gerard Koot said.

Today, Dr. Koot is a member of

the Dartmouth Historical Commission

and chairman of the History

 Department at UMass Dartmouth. In 1963, he was a 19-year-old student at

  Assumption College in Worcester .

 He was in class when someone announced President Kennedy's death at about

 2:30, he said. Classes were canceled.

 He remembers going downtown a few hours later, taking advantage of the chance

 to do his laundry.

 The president's death was visible on the people he saw. They were distracted,

 shocked.

 "I was in a daze, like so many people were," he said.

 John F. Kennedy had captivated so many Massachusetts residents, who identified

 with the young president despite his storied background of privilege.

 The Harvard graduate from Brookline who spent summers on Cape Cod was

  America 's first Roman Catholic president. By the time he was elected, he was a Navy

 veteran of World War II and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

 "I admired him and the whole family," said Lorraine Dabrowski of Acushnet. She

 was in her 30s at the time, working in the accounting department at Aerovox.

 Shortly after returning to her desk from lunch, she recalls, she got a telephone

 call from her husband with the news. She turned around to tell "the girls," her

 co-workers, when their supervisor came in and sent everyone home.

 Diane Ferreira, owner of Abrakadabra Salon in Fairhaven , was barely old enough

 in 1963 to know the enormity of the president's death.

 "I was very upset. I remember watching it on TV," she said.

 Why did she mourn at 10 years old?

 "My parents," she said. "Even today, why are people Democrat or Republican?

 Their family. My family were Democrats."