Lost hope: 60 years ago, the U.S. lost its beloved president

While in office, Kennedy doubled the surplus food allotment in West Virginia, extended welfare benefits, increased the amount of federal aid in the state and initiated the national food stamp program in the Mountain State. He also helped the state obtain new buildings and improved park systems.

Kennedy gave West Virginians a sense of pride in their state, experts have said.

In his very last visit to West Virginia, Kennedy thanked state residents for their support of him in his presidential race.

“I would not be where I am now, I would not have some of the responsibilities which I now bear, if it had not been for the people of West Virginia,” Kennedy said, referring to the state’s 1960 Democratic primary.

In the 1960 general election, Kennedy won West Virginia over Republican nominee Richard Nixon by 46,000 votes.

After Kennedy’s assassination 60 years ago — on Nov. 22, 1963 — West Virginians and people all over the nation mourned the death of a political leader who embodied so much hope.

The Nov. 23, 1963, Clarksburg Telegram carried Associated Press coverage of Kennedy’s assassination.

“He was a man of great dedication and of noble and understanding courage,” Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said then. “His good and abiding faith in the peoples of our country and of the world will be an everlasting monument in our memories.”

For many older North Central West Virginians, Kennedy is a monument in their memories even today.

“He came here to the state and supported us,” Hepzibah resident Bill O’Field said. “He really had the union workers and poor people in mind when he was making his deliberations and considerations.”

O’Field recalls his family’s strong support of the president and the heartbreak that followed after his death.

“You just wonder where he would have taken us. He wasn’t perfect. But it was what he was doing for the country,” O’Field said.

At the time of Kennedy’s assassination, O’Field was in school at Hepzibah Elementary. He was 10 years old at the time and when news was released, his school closed early that day.

As O’Field rode the bus home, he recalls feeling “sad and confused.” To O’Field and his family, Kennedy was special because he supported West Virginians. They felt a special connection to him because he visited the state.

“It is what everybody was talking about and had that concern of what the country was going to do,” O’Field said.

Clarksburg’s Diana Christafore was also in school when she heard the news.

After coming home and turning on the TV, Christafore watched in shock as reports spoke about the death of the nation’s president.

“It was the strangest feeling to sit there and look at the pictures on TV and listen to what they were saying, knowing that he was gone,” Christafore said. “The Kennedys were like royalty. They were our royalty. Our hearts were just broken.”

Christafore said the community processed Kennedy’s death by talking about all the things they liked about him and how much they would miss him.

“It was really on our minds heavy for several weeks. Like they say, time heals and takes away.”

The Nov 24, 1963, edition of the Sunday Exponent-Telegram records that community members gave floral offerings around a portrait of the president in front of the Harrison County Courthouse. People paused in tears as they brought flowers to honor him.

As we approach 60 years since Kennedy’s death, Christafore still mulls the what ifs.

“I always wondered what he would’ve done for us. I think he was a very smart man.”

Tom Maditz, resident at Maplewood Healthcare Center, was 23 years old when Kennedy was shot and was on his lunch break when he heard about the assassination on a radio.

Maditz said he talked about the occurrence later that evening with his family.

“I think he was a great president,” Maditz said. “After he was shot, it just seemed like everything died.”

“That family gave the country hope,” O’Field said. “That is the kind of thing we need now.”