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| Raymond & Carol Poe |
State Rep. Raymond Poe was 19 when he and his wife-to-be, Carol, were at the Sangamon County courthouse getting their marriage license as President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
“Everybody remembers where they were,” Poe, 69, recalled this week.
“We got married the next day, and then went down to the Smoky Mountains” in Tennessee, he said. “At that time, people showed so much respect for the president, and literally, you couldn’t hardly find a place even to stop and eat” because so many businesses were closed. Open gas stations were rare, too.
“I’m not sure today that would happen,” the Springfield Republican said. “There was just a lot of respect and a lot of mourning going on.”
He said he and Carol did have TV at their motel and watched the coverage in the aftermath of Kennedy’s death.
“I think it hurt every American,” Poe said. “We … hope to never live long enough to see it happen again.” Read more of the story by Bernard Schoenburg in the SJR.