Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the deaths of three well-known authors: US President John F. Kennedy (he wrote three books before becoming President), C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley.
JFK was 46 years old when he was assassinated. In the car driving through Dallas that day, Texas Governor John Connally’s wife turned around and said, “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome.”
“No, you certainly can’t,” JFK replied, a blink of an eye before the bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle killed him.
Aldous Huxley, a British author, mostly known for writing A Brave New World, published in 1932, was 69 at his death on this day. He was a confused man spiritually and a hallucinogenic drug user. On his deathbed, after a long battle with laryngeal cancer, with just a short time to live, he had his wife inject him with a large dose of the drug LSD.
Also, on that same day, less than an hour after JFK was assassinated, author C.S. Lewis passed away after suffering from multiple health issues over the previous few years. He was 64.
In 1982, author and professor of philosophy Peter Kreeft (now 86 years old) published a book titled Between Heaven and Hell, imagining a conversation of these three on the other side of sight.
Another person died that day. Police officer J.D. Tippit confronted JFK assassin Oswald in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas and was shot and killed. While investigating that shooting, investigators were led to the movie theater where Oswald was finally arrested.
Tippit wasn’t an author. He was a Bronze-Star decorated US Army soldier who served in World War II in Europe as a paratrooper, a special group who jumped out of perfectly good airplanes to fight an enemy on the ground. He wasn’t the fearful type.
He struggled to find his way after separating from the Army in 1946 and eventually took the Veterans Administration’s offer of vocational training, becoming a police officer in 1952.
He was earning about $490 per month in 1963 (about $4,900 in 2023 dollars) when he was shot and killed by Oswald, leaving behind a wife and three children. He was 39. His funeral was televised in Dallas on November 25, 1963.
J.D.’s wife, Marie, passed away in 2021 at the age of 92. The Tippit’s eldest son, Allan, who was 13 when his father was killed, died at age 64 in 2014. The remaining two children are still alive.
After JFK was buried in Arlington Cemetery, now former First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy wrote a note to Marie Tippit. Speaking of it years later, “She said that she had lit a flame for Jack, and she was going to consider that it would burn for my husband, too, that it would burn forever.”
Stories are everywhere. When you think you understand and have thoroughly covered something, it expands and takes you in many different directions. I started with a date and the deaths of three men. Researching just a little made it even more interesting, at least for me.
For those of you who write as a process of discovery, you never know what interesting story twist is next if you look around.
Cultivating Gratitude, Rest, and Contentment in Writing
You nailed it. Writing is so much fun because it’s a process of discovery. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.
Thank you for this, Dan.
‘Twas unplanned, but I was there
on the silver anniversary,
and I felt something in the air,
the wraiths that I could almost see
on that busy lonely lane,
on the grassy knoll,
and heavy was the childlike pain
of a nation that day lost its soul.
Not perfect, no, but mostly just,
then sudden-shattered to the core,
in aftermath we lost our trust
in Emma’s fabled Golden Door,
and chose to seek conspiracy
behind every rock and tree.
I whole heartily agree. So much so that I have a chapter of my book, NO ROMANCING THE PASSENGERS now on Amazon preorder, that we cut out of the book on my website as a story behind the story. Not necessary for the story to go forward, but still important for the story to even be imagined.
Biographies by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Innocents Abroad, The Poetry of Robert Frost, C.J. Box, Bill Bryson—and the dear parents who gave their daughter twenty-six middle names, from A to Z! Research may consume ten times or more the time to actually write a book, but it enriches the mind and soul. We senior citizens are realizing just how much our comparative knowledge fits in a thimble. And how many questions only God could answer.
Nailed it, Dan.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and Carol.
Thanks for this Dan. I remember the day, and the man JFK, and I love the writings of the other two. Yes, all stories are fractal, they never end.
The digger I deep, the flyer I high.
Backstory is the best treasure hunt there is.
This was a great article. Thanks.
That really was fascinating, Dan. Thank you. I didn’t know.
A couple years ago my friend John sent me his father-in-law’s obituary, written by the deceased. Wit and humor told the tale of a man who loved his family and loved having fun. It was funny, self-effacing, and inspirational. Later I learned that he wrote it ten years before he died, and seven years before he suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. During the final years of his life, he couldn’t write anything. Fortunately he had captured stories and adventures, highs, lows, loves and dislikes in the form of an obituary, written in the third person. The Story of Your Life: Write Your Own Obituary was published this week. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all who read this blog. And special thanks to Mike who inspired me to consider what we leave behind when we die.
I was there, in Dallas, on that fateful day. I was 19 and had my first job in a bank downtown. My father told me to take my lunch time and go see the motorcade. I did. They, the Kennedy’s, looked perfect, almost like wax figures. The motorcade passed and I went back to my desk. I was 5 feet from my desk when the bank was swarming with police telling everyone to go home that the president had been shot. I will never forget that day. Dallas, my home town, has never been the same.
I, too, love to do research! I never knew those things about J.D. Tippet and his family. What a heartbreaking day that was for so many and for our country.
Kathy, my question has always been: How did Tippet know exactly where to find Oswald? That movie theater is in Oak Cliff which is about 25 miles from downtown Dallas. He got there awfully fast. I wondered if he had a ride to take him to that theater. I lived in Oak Cliff at the time. I was 19 and had to take the bus to downtown Dallas to work at the bank. So, HOW did they find him so quickly? What did Tippet know? Same with Jack Ruby. In fact, everyone that knew anything was dead within a few weeks after Kennedy was killed. All I know, the same as everyon else, is what we saw happening over the few days that followed that was televised on TV – in black and white!
So true Dan. Stories are absolutely everywhere, and they can take you on a wonderful journey of discovery! Hope you and your family had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Holiday!