Life in a Washington, D.C. Suburb at the Time of Kennedy's Assassination - Yahoo

I grew up with a mailing address in Falls Church, Virginia, in the 1960s, though our community lay just beyond it—closer to Bailey’s Crossroads and Culmore, along the shores of Lake Barcroft. For a child, it was an ideal setting: a wooded stretch behind our home sloped down to an open field and a dock on the lake. Those five years in Virginia remain among my happiest memories.

My father, Col. William A. Darden, a career Army officer, was stationed in Washington, D.C., which is what brought us there. It was a remarkable and unsettled time, both for our family and for the country.

I was asked to write a first-hand account of what life was like (in 300 words or less) during the time of President Kennedy's assassination for Yahoo, and these are my memories:

Life in a Washington, D.C. Suburb at the Time of Kennedy's Assassination

Lake Barcroft, just outside Washington, D.C., was a middle-class suburb home to many military and government families in the early 1960s. My father was stationed at the Pentagon with the Bureau of Yards and Docks, so the rhythms of our household were closely tied to events in the nation’s capital.

On November 22, 1963, I was a young girl in pigtails at St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Virginia. At the time, St. Agnes Episcopal School for Girls (now part of St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School) was a private school that primarily taught young girls in the area.

Not long after lunch that day, we were sitting quietly as our teacher wrote on the blackboard. Suddenly, another teacher entered. She spoke in a low voice, but something in her expression caught our attention. After a whispered conversation, both women stepped outside, closing the door behind them and leaving us alone in the classroom—something that rarely ever occurred. 

After a short time, our teacher came back in looking stricken. She told us she had terrible news: the president had been shot. She escorted us to another room—one with a television, and there our young eyes watched history unfold. We weren’t old enough to fully understand the gravity of the news we were watching, but we knew the President had been shot, and it wasn’t long after that we discovered he had been shot in the head. Even third and fourth graders were able to grasp the gravity of that situation. 

Around 2:00pm, Walter Cronkite announced the devastating news: President John F. Kennedy was dead. 

Up until that day the world had seemed relatively safe. Afterward, many of us understood, perhaps for the first time, that power, an important title and armed security were no match for an angry man with a military rifle. 

School dismissed early. Parents arrived quickly, and as we drove home, we watched the city begin to shut down.

Read more at: Life in a Washington, D.C. Suburb at the Time of Kennedy's Assassination - Yahoo 

Some of this story is part of a larger biographical book I’m writing about my father, William A. Darden, Jr.—a tribute to a man whose footprints I still follow. His narrative traces an extraordinary path from a Nashville childhood on Fatherland Street to the classrooms of Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, to Sundar Nagar, India and then to the Pentagon. A veteran of WWII, Darden’s life remained deeply rooted in the history of the family home at Tick Hill and his wife’s family legacy at Ransom Place. This project goes beyond the uniform to uncover the man himself, moving from the halls of Central High to the final years in Brentwood. For more info, see William A. Darden: Upcoming Biography and Legacy Project. Be part of the discussion on Facebook.

Related historical and biographical articles on William A. Darden are collected in the full archive here: William A. Darden – Articles & Legacy Archive.

To be notified when the book is available, please email darden.k@gmail.com with the subject ‘Book Interest’.