{"id":407,"date":"2016-03-31T20:50:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T00:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/?p=407"},"modified":"2016-04-01T10:04:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T14:04:25","slug":"camelot-wannabees-by-olivia-baranowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/2016\/03\/31\/camelot-wannabees-by-olivia-baranowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Camelot Wannabes by Olivia Baranowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fireplace\"<\/a>The story:<\/p>\n

My grandparents were engaged November in 1963 and planned to be married the following summer in June of 1964.\u00a0 My grandmother, Sarah, worked at the Curtis Publishing Company located in Old City and my grandfather, Robert, was a full time graduate student at Temple University.\u00a0 They first saw the President when he was visiting Philadelphia during those early years in the 1960s.\u00a0 They waited along Frankford Avenue with friends and cheered and waved American flags as he drove down the avenue in his motorcade.\u00a0 He was campaigning for his election, the same as he was when he was assassinated.\u00a0 My grandmother humorously compared the spectacle to the way Philadelphia was when the Pope recently visited back in September.<\/p>\n

The day JFK was killed my grandmother was at work and my grandfather was at his parents\u2019 home studying for an exam.\u00a0 My grandmother and the rest of her coworkers stood around the small black-and-white television in the lobby of the building for what seemed like hours.\u00a0 Everyone watched the news and no one spoke, she said, everyone was in shock.\u00a0 My grandfather was listening to the radio while he was studying and the music was interrupted with the announcement, and he gathered his family around the radio to listen to what the radio hosts were reporting.\u00a0 He recalled feeling confused because the radio hosts didn\u2019t seem to have much information.\u00a0 Later that evening, my grandmother went over to my grandfather\u2019s house to help him study for his exam, but they couldn\u2019t concentrate on the material.\u00a0 It was hard for them to fathom what had happened that day.\u00a0 They said everyone they knew and our family members were in shock.\u00a0 Temple canceled their classes the next day.<\/p>\n

Why They Loved Him:<\/p>\n

My grandmother loved fashion.\u00a0 She had all the big name magazines and was a frequent shopper at her local fabric store where she would buy fabric to make her own dresses and skirts.\u00a0 She loved Jackie Kennedy.\u00a0 My grandmother was someone that saw her as a fashion icon.\u00a0 She loved seeing when new pictures of Jackie were released so she could remake what she was wearing or gain her own inspiration form the images.\u00a0 My grandmother made a black skirt and black silk camisole when JFK was killed.<\/p>\n

Because of the way the Kennedys were portrayed during his presidency, my grandparents thought of them as the perfect family.\u00a0 They were engaged; they wanted a family to be exactly like the Kennedys.\u00a0 They were beautiful and healthy and seemed to have had it all.\u00a0 My grandfather jokingly mentioned how even he was taken back by JFK\u2019s handsome appearance and how much better he looked standing next to Nixon.\u00a0 This is something that my grandparents look back on fondly; they have said that they didn\u2019t pay attention to scandal news when it came out.<\/p>\n

My grandparents wanted to create their own Camelot in their West Philadelphia row home.\u00a0 It is interesting to hear their story and compare it to the way the Kennedys are viewed today.\u00a0 They look back with such nostalgia, they think nothing is wrong with the family or listen to the rumors and conspiracy theories.\u00a0 They take real politics out of the mix and look at the family for what they were, a family.\u00a0 My grandparents\u2019 memory of the Kennedys today is so pure that I think many people should forget any negative judgement of the family and remember the tragic event that caused a wife to lose her husband and children to lose their father.\u00a0 In the end, that is what made my grandmother so emotionally upset about the assassination.\u00a0 My grandparents appreciate the legacy left behind and still honored by the Kennedy family.<\/p>\n

Note on Photo: The cross over the fireplace was replaced with this picture of the President during the Camelot era.\u00a0 Pictured here: my grandmother\u2019s younger sister (my Great Aunt Mary-Anne, dress made by my grandmother) on her way to her high school\u2019s prom, overlooked by JFK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story: My grandparents were engaged November in 1963 and planned to be married the following summer in June of 1964.\u00a0 My grandmother, Sarah, worked at the Curtis Publishing Company located in Old City and my grandfather, Robert, was a full time graduate student at Temple University.\u00a0 They first saw the President when he was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[255,248,250],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-assassination","tag-camelot-myth","tag-jfk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/americanicons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}