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‘How could this be possible?’: JFK’s death ended American innocence

By Billie Dunn

CATSKILL — Greene County Democratic Party Chairman Thomas Poelker was in preparatory school in Brooklyn, Rev. Richard Turpin of the Second Baptist Church in Catskill was in grade school in Albany, and former Coxsackie mayor Henry Betke was in the Coxsackie Bakery and Meat Company on Mansion Street in the village.

It was November 22, 1963 - and it’s the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

“I was in the store waiting on customers. There was a radio playing in the bake shop, and we heard it. I thought I misheard it at first,” said Betke. “It was unbelievable. We were all kind of numb.”

Betke, who was mayor of Coxsackie at the time of the assassination, owned and operated the 17 Mansion St. market, and though he can’t recall the customers who were in the shop when it occurred, he vividly remembers a feeling of disbelief.

“We wondered, ‘how could this be possible?’ It was a terrible thing,” he said, “It was a very sad day for the country.”

Poelker agrees, “It was a disturbing time. There was so much hope, and such a promising future for President Kennedy,” he said.

At the time Poelker was a high schooler at Brooklyn Prep School, and he remembers being stunned when one of his teachers began the class with the news.

“It was remarkable and earth shattering for me,” he said. “You wouldn’t think that in the early 1960s, with so much change going on, that the optimism could be shattered.”

After high school Poelker served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served his entire tour of duty in and around Washington, D.C., and he says the experience - combined with Kennedy’s assassination - contributed to his political activism.

Unlike Betke or Poelker, Turpin was only eight years old at the time, and attending St. Joseph’s Academy in Albany, but he too remembers the occurrence vividly.

“The nuns brought everyone into the auditorium for a general assembly, and our principal made the announcement,” he said. “He told us that school would be dismissed, and he told us to get home safely.”

Turpin says that as a child, getting out of school early was significant. He remembers playing on the way home, but once he got there he said it was like he had done something wrong.

“There was no more playing,” he recalled, “It was quiet. My parents and neighbors were hurt, and at the time I didn’t understand the impact of someone losing their life - I was just a child,” said Turpin.

Later in life, Turpin says, he realized that it was the power of Kennedy’s leadership - and the loss of that leadership - that had such an impact on the country.

“I was a little kid, and I’ll never forget it. It’s a moment of history that will ring forever,” he said.

Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917. He was inaugurated the 35th President of the United States in 1961 and served until his assassination in 1963.

After serving the country in the armed forces during World War II, Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts in the House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, and in the Senate from 1953 until 1960 before defeating Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the president’s murder just two days later, but the circumstances surrounding JFK’s death remain controversial today. Scores of books have been written about the assassination, and Oliver Stone’s impressive film “JFK” dramatized the labyrinthine theories of who really killed the President.

“It was a pretty memorable occasion,” said Linda Overbaugh, executive director of the Heart of Catskill Association. Overbaugh was in anatomy class at the Albany Memorial School of Nursing when she heard the news. She remembers it distinctly, because one of the girls in her class broke down.

“I’ll never forget it,” she said, “Most anyone who lived through it remembers.”

To reach reporter Billie Dunn, please call 518-943-2100 ext. 3323 or e-mail bdunn@thedailymail.net.

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