Nov 23, 2003 By Frances Borsodi Zajac 5 min read

Isabel Grimes had just entered a bank in Connellsville when she learned the news that President Kennedy had been shot. “It was a shock. We were all shocked. We couldn’t believe it at first,” said Grimes, now 81, as she recalled where she was Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

“I know it was a sad weekend. We watched television all the time,” Grimes said. “We watched the burial and the little boy saluting his father. That was uppermost in our minds.”

Forty years later, the assassination still weighs heavily on the minds of many Americans like Grimes, one of several local residents who shared their memories at the Uniontown Mall on Saturday, the anniversary of the assassination.

All were leading normal lives – going to school, working or running errands – when they discovered the president was dead.

“I was a junior in high school at Albert Gallatin,” said Vicki Clegg, 56, of Uniontown.

Her husband, Jim, who sat beside her, remembered, “I was in North Union Township Junior High and we watched it on television. Someone came in and said the president got shot and we got hold of a TV and watched it.”

“The only thing I remember,” said Mrs. Clegg, an employee of Invensys, “is that it came over the intercom that Kennedy was shot. That’s how we found out. I guess I started to cry. I was sad.”

“I was young then,” said Clegg, a househusband. “I didn’t think it could happen in the United States. When you’re young, it stuns you.”

Joseph Bobincheck, 79, of Palmer learned the news on his car radio while driving home from work at Bethlehem Steel in Leetsdale.

“I didn’t like it. I thought it was horrible,” Bobincheck said.

Dale Rodeheaver, 70, and his wife, Wilma, 68, of Accident, Md., remember they were traveling in their car to Uniontown to go shopping. Rodeheaver, now retired, had just started his job at Garrett National Bank and it was his first day off. The couple heard the news over their car radio.

“I’ll never forget that. It was just shocking. What had happened to our country?” Rodeheaver asked. “That and 9-11 were the two most traumatic events that ever happened in our country in my time.”

“I just had this terrible, terrible feeling of sadness and I was scared,” said Mrs. Rodeheaver. “He was our president.”

Dave Gaskill, 65, of West Brownsville was teaching mechanical and architectural drawing at Long Branch High School in Long Branch, N.J., when he learned the news on a television set in the teachers’ lounge.

“It was a very shocking experience,” said Gaskill, who is retired from teaching at Penn Hills High School. “They made an announcement over the loudspeaker that President Kennedy was assassinated. The students were shocked, but I don’t think they realized the seriousness of what happened. It probably didn’t sink in until that evening on the newscast. The TVs were full of what happened.”

Like the rest of the nation, these residents spent the weekend watching television as the events unfolded: the report that Kennedy, 46, was gunned down in a motorcade in Dallas and pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital. Kennedy’s body was flown back to Washington, D.C., as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for Kennedy’s murder and then shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Margie Angelo of Fairchance was a housewife doing chores when someone phoned her with the news. She turned on her television: “I couldn’t walk away from it.”

Local residents also had vivid memories of the funeral, especially a young John F. Kennedy Jr. giving a poignant salute to his father. They also spoke with respect towards Jacqueline Kennedy, remarking on her quiet strength and dignity.

“I remember how she hid her grief,” said Mrs. Rodeheaver. “I’d be crying my eyes out, but she was a true lady. She did it for the country. She showed her strength.”

“I felt so sorry for her,” said Angelo. “I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. What a terrible way to lose your husband.”

While grief and shock understandably were the first reaction many felt at the loss of the president, local residents said they also felt fear.

“I just thought, ‘What is our world headed to, and what will happen next when they murder the president?'” said Grimes.

“I thought, ‘What’s going to happen next and why did all this happen?'” said Mrs. Rodeheaver. “Life was different then. You felt more vulnerable. I remember thinking, ‘How could this happen to our country?'”

“The whole country was in shock,” said Gaskill. “It made you feel if the president was vulnerable, anybody was vulnerable. If they can’t protect the president, they can’t protect anybody.”

And yet there are good memories. Even 40 years later, these residents still admire Kennedy.

“He had the right ideas,” said Clegg. “He just didn’t live long enough.”

“I thought he was a brilliant president,” said Grimes. “He solved our missile crisis in Cuba. I thought he was doing his best for our country at the time.”

Mrs. Rodeheaver said, “He made a good president. He had new ideas.”

“I didn’t vote for him, but I thought he would have made a great president. He was only in office a thousand days, not long enough to be considered great,” said Gaskill.

“I thought the world of him,” said Angelo. “I thought he was a good president and he was very handsome. I think he would have done a lot more for our country if he had the chance.”