116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Remembering JFK’s visits to Iowa
Marion library marks 60th anniversary of assassination with program, replicas of Jackie’s jewelry
MARION — David Wendell has been a historian since his senior year at Linn-Mar High School when he spearheaded an effort to save the Marion Depot.
Wendell, an occasional guest columnist for The Gazette, has now organized a program to commemorate the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.
The program will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 21, at the Marion Public Library, 1101 Sixth Ave. — 24 hours before the nation’s 35th president was declared dead 60 years ago.
After Wendell delivers a eulogy, he will take visitors through an exhibit that includes photographs, artifacts and replicas of Jacqueline Kennedy’s earrings, necklaces and rings authorized by the Kennedy Library and Museum.
“Jackie Kennedy was an icon of her time, just as much as the president was,” Wendell said. “Since she and he meant so much to the people of that era, I want to make certain that this heritage continues on to the next generation.”
Wendell’s program will recall the times Kennedy visited Iowa.
As a U.S. senator from Massachussetts, Kennedy’s first foray into corn country came on June 3, 1956, when he was the commencement speaker for Loras College in Dubuque and received an honorary doctor of law degree.
In March 1958 — two years before he ran for president — Kennedy attended the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines. Before that event, he held a news conference, attended receptions at the governor’s mansion and at the Des Moines Press Club, and met with 300 farm leaders at a farm policy meeting.
A few months later, on Oct. 17, 1958, Kennedy flew to Cedar Rapids to attend the National Corn-Picking Contest on the Lumir Dostal farm near Marion. Both he and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were there.
Kennedy was asked what he and Eisenhower, a Republican, said to each other during their brief encounter at the farm.
“I asked him what he was doing way out here,” Kennedy said, “and he asked me the same thing.”
Kennedy spoke that evening at a Linn County Democratic fundraiser at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Cedar Rapids.
Kennedy was a presidential candidate in June 1960 when he dropped in on a picnic sponsored by the Linn County Democratic Women’s Club at Marion’s Thomas Park.
In August, he again visited Des Moines for a farm rally at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. “Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, vice-presidential candidate, heard a report on Midwestern farmers’ problems just before they spoke to an estimated crowd of 8,000,” The Gazette reported.
Kennedy was in Sioux City on Sept. 21 and 22, 1960, and in Fort Dodge on Sept. 23. On Nov. 8, he was narrowly elected president over Richard Nixon, who was Eisenhower’s vice president and who would be narrowly elected president in 1968.
Next week, the 60th anniversary observance of Kennedy’s assassination will conclude with the laying of a memorial wreath, a moment of silence, and the ringing of the memorial bell 46 times, one for each year of Kennedy’s life, according to a new release.
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