By Dan Mac Alpine Wicked Local North of Boston Posted Nov 22, 2013 @ 11:16 AM It was 1958 and Jack Kennedy was running for his second term as the junior senator from Massachusetts. Bill Wasserman, president of the Amesbury News, which also published the Ipswich Chronicle, got word Kennedy was going to make a campaign stop in Amesbury. He grabbed his Speed Graphic camera and went to wait at the corner for the Kennedy motorcade. Even then, Kennedy campaigned in a convertible. “I was standing there and the car stopped right in front of me,” said Wasserman. “Jack jumped out of the back of the car — the same kind of car he was killed in — and came up to me. He shook my hand and said, ‘Mr. Wasserman, how nice of you to be here.’” Later, Kennedy would make another stop in Amesbury and visit with Wasserman. “I remember he was going to go to the Merrimac Hat Company of Amesbury. Only he didn’t have a hat. He was the first national leader not to wear a hat. So, we found him a hat.” Kennedy was famous for his inspirational speeches — “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Camelot. The glamour and glitz. His charisma. But the stories show Kennedy never forgot it was the small things that mattered to people. From vaulting out of his drop top limo to greet a small-city publisher to making sure to wear a hat when campaigning at a hat factory, the Kennedy mystique may have been more calculated than conjured. “You can bet the Amesbury News was strongly for Jack Kennedy from that day forward,” said Wasserman. Everyone knew the Massachusetts senate race against Republican Vincent J. Celeste was a test run for the presidency in 1960. In 1956, he had been nominated to run for vice president. Kennedy needed to win this senate election. And win big. He took 73 percent of the popular vote. Just five years later, President Kennedy would be shot dead while he riding in a convertible limousine waving to crowds in Dallas. Colonial Drive resident Thelma Davis remembers napping with her 5-year-old daughter. “The telephone rang,” said Davis. ‘Someone shot John Kennedy,’ a neighbor said. I turned on the TV, and in shock I watched the replay while trying to explain to my 5-year-old daughter how our lives would never, ever be the same. My Carolyn kept watching the replays with me and she kept saying, No Mommy you are wrong, see hes alive like us. “We were in history class with Mr. Huntress, in Lynnfield,” said Ellen Slavin, of Linebrook Road. “There was an announcement over the loudspeaker. I was baffled. I didn’t quite understand what was going on. Some girls burst out crying. There was a fear we would be taken over by Russians because our president was dead.” At 14, Slavin had little conception of politics or what Kennedy stood for politically: “I was more interested in the Beatles,” who would make their American debut on the Ed Sullivan show just three months after Kennedy’s murder. But she did get something about President Kennedy. “We would see it on the news, what a glamorous lifestyle they led. It was unattainable to the average young person. You would look up to them. It was the lifestyle that any young person would look at,” said Slavin. Six days after Kennedy’s assassination the Ipswich Chronicle went to press with its first edition following the President’s death. The headline read, over a photo of an American flag at half-staff, “Down Deep Inside Us.” And then a smaller headline, “Ipswich Unites in Tribute.” The lead story focused on a memorial service, which drew 800 people, and the article couched the service as near a miracle in its own right: “Casting aside ancient barriers in a move unprecedented in the town’s history, clergymen from all eight Ipswich churches joined together this week in a civic memorial tribute to the late John F. Kennedy.” The article went on to say, “It was one of the largest crowds ever assembled under one roof in the town’s history.” The crowd prayed. They sang “America the Beautiful.” And Harry Munro, chairman of the board of selectmen, read a statement, saying in part, “What was there about this man that brings our nation to such depth of sorrow? It was when he spoke out against evil and tyranny, something deep down inside us would speak out too. When he spoke out for equal rights for all men and women regardless of race and creed, something deep down inside us spoke out, too.” Wasserman admitted Kennedy’s senate accomplishments were “thin,” but, somehow, Kennedy went beyond the resume. “No doubt he had that charisma,” said Wasserman. “When he came into a room you knew it. As a progressive leader he had credentials. His inauguration was such a scintillating, exciting experience and he had Robert Frost. What other president has someone of that stature? And “Ask not…’ that still sends shivers down my spine.” Perhaps 5-year-old Carolyn Davis had it right 50 years ago after all, “No Mommy, you are wrong. See hes alive like us. Comment or view comments » Read more: wickedlocal/ipswich/news/x2132758975/Ipswich-remembers-JFK#ixzz2leX1bEPz Follow us: 193499973994852 on Facebook
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 11:01:58 +0000
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