The Kennedy Assassination

Miss Ruth Bertsch

"I have to tell you, the

President has been shot."

Our English teacher, Miss Ruth Bertsch, asked the class to read an Edgar Allen Poe story aloud. The first student in the first row read a paragraph and then the student behind her picked up the story, and so on. Several paragraphs into the reading another teacher opened the classroom door and asked Miss Bertsch to step out into the hallway. Miss Bertsch told the class to continue reading and left. As the reading reached the boy seated next to me, the classroom public address speaker popped on, playing eerie music. The kids in the class thought it was humorous since it complimented our Poe reading.

The music continued as Miss Bertsch came back in and walked to the front of the room. "I have to tell you," she said, "the President has been shot." The classroom fell silent.

In my mind, I imagined something like the McKinley shooting: a guy walking up to President Kennedy and shooting him at close range in the chest or abdomen. I was, at this time, unaware there had been a motorcade. For some reason, I figured the President was just wounded. McKinley didn't survive his shooting but this was 1963; we had great doctors, great medicine and surely they would do anything to care for the President of the United States.

The eerie music that filled the room became a news report. It had a lot of confusion, a lot of talk and not much information. The only significant facts were that President Kennedy had been riding in a motorcade, was shot, taken to the hospital and there was no word from the doctors there. There was still hope – things would be OK.

The bell rang and we all filed out. I walked the silent halls to my history class. Loren Comstock, the teacher, was a competitive bodybuilder who had won the 1958 Mr. Indiana contest. As the students settled into their seats he sat on the corner of his desk and said, "Let's just listen. However it turns out, this is history."

Mr. Loren Comstock

"However it turns out,

this is history."

The news reports continued to be confusing and did not provide a lot of information. Hope and despair ebbed and flowed. Then a reporter came on with this: "Two priests who came to the hospital have come back out. They said they administered Last Rights to President Kennedy and also said the President is dead."

That was the moment I knew. It wasn't official but I knew the priests wouldn't lie. Only the smallest fading spark of hope remained. It was still a long and excruciating wait for the official word. Finally, it came. My mind was numb and swimming in disbelief that such a thing could happen in our country.

I remember very little about the rest of the school day. I heard someone say the band members had been practicing in a room that did not have a PA system. They apparently came out of the room laughing, joking and tooting their horns as others questioned their antics until they learned the band students didn't know what was going on. The bus ride home was long and quiet.

That evening my family sat around the television watching Air Force One return to Washington. I belonged to a slot car racing club that met on Friday nights. I called another member, found out guys were showing up, so I decided to go. I thought it might help to get away from the somber events of the day. It didn't. Members just sat around and talked about their experiences earlier that day. We tried to do a little work on the cars but didn't get much done. We called off the races and I went home.

Saturday was a blur of TV and other activities around the house. I went shopping with my mother and remember being at a strip-mall with news about the events surrounding the assassination playing on speakers outside.

Sunday, I went with my parents and brother to my aunt and uncle's place about 40 miles north of our home. While we were riding up there, the news bulletin came on the radio that Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot. Again, there was no word of his condition but it wasn't long before we heard that he also had died. A weekend of unreal events had just become more bizzare.

North Central High School, Indianapolis, Indiana

They canceled school on Monday and I watched the events leading up to the funeral and the funeral itself. As clear today in my mind as it was then: ghostly black and white images of the procession, the flyover, the prayers, folding of the flag, the presentation to the frail Mrs. Kennedy standing next to Bobby and the lighting of the eternal flame. Most notably, I remember the bugler playing taps flubbing a note in the piece. Later news reports said he had done it on purpose as a tribute to the fallen President. I heard later this is not the case but that some buglers since have done the same thing as a tradition.

Tuesday it was back to school. Again, things were a blur. I don't remember much in the aftermath. One thing, we were in a new high school, the first year it had been opened. The gymnasium was not yet completed so we held all the basketball games in the old school. I can remember it being decorated in black mourning crepe.

The famed Zapruder film was not available right away. It was only as Life Magazine published the frames of the film in bits and pieces and, later, as the film itself came out that people learned how grisly the scene was and, frankly, how hopeless it was the President could have survived.

November 22, 1963, stands out in my memory more so than any other day: more than the Challenger or Columbia disasters, more than a string of tragedies since. Only September 11, 2001 comes close in terms of intensity, a date that those younger than I am can relate to like the Kennedy assassination as that instant when an entire nation of people knew exactly where they were and what they were doing at that single moment in time.

~SLH

Epilog: Mr. Comstock went on to become an Indianapolis attorney and here is shown being interviewed in 2018 about one of his cases. Miss Bertsch (Ruth E. Bertsch Stilwell) passed away in 2012 at the age of 93.