Thanksgiving Day and the 55th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy

I don’t spend much time talking about the JFK assassination, but I believe my tone has changed over the years when I do. In the beginning, not many people really wanted to hear my story, and I was very uncomfortable talking about it. Also, when I did talk about it, especially in a formal setting, I always felt like I needed to keep a very somber tone. I was even afraid to smile. It was, after all, a national tragedy – even a world tragedy. It’s so much easier to talk about it now than it used to be. I first noticed a relaxing change in the overall public tone in 2013 during my interviews for the 50th anniversary. Maybe  the circus atmosphere of the 50th anniversary event had something to do with it, or maybe it was my age, but I was able to relax a bit during those interviews.

Rarely, through the years, did the assassination topic arise at Thanksgiving dinners – even if it was the anniversary, like it is today. However, the topic came up at home today in a small family group of only four, including myself. I even brought out the 1967 Life magazine when I was asked about it. I also brought out the 1968 ‘Teen magazine with the article I wrote.

I realized today that I have two favorite images of my parents and me standing in the street at Houston and Elm that day. (There probably aren’t many more than two.) One is a photo taken from behind us by a man named Hugh Betzner, who was actually trying to get a photo of the presidential limousine, but we fill up most of the frame. My other favorite is a frame of the Towners from Elsie Dorman’s film. The following is an excerpt about the Dorman frame from my book Tina Towner, My story as the youngest photographer at the Kennedy assassination, which I self-published in November, 2012:

On November 24, 1967, Life published a cover article entitled, “Why Kennedy Went to Texas,” together with some of the unpublished images taken by me, my father, and eight other eyewitness photographers. In the front of this 1967 issue, on page three in the Editor’s Note, George P. Hunt, managing editor, stated that soon after the assassination, my father contacted Patsy Swank, a Dallas correspondent for Life magazine. Apparently, Life chose not to interview us at that time, but the Editor’s Note went on to say that in the summer of 1967, Life discovered that Elsie Dorman had been taking movies of the motorcade from the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, where she worked. Accompanying the Editor’s Note of that issue of Life was a thumbnail image of a frame from Ms. Dorman’s film, clearly showing my father, my mother, and me, while Daddy and I are in the process of photographing the president’s limousine. Per the Editor’s Note, after the representatives of Life viewed the Elsie Dorman images in the summer of 1967, they contacted Patsy Swank in Dallas to find out if she perhaps knew who we were. She identified us, subsequently contacted us, and she and her crew came to our home on Ovid Avenue in Oak Cliff to interview the three of us.

I am still thrilled that Life included these details in the Editor’s Note in the 1968 issue. I’m not sure if I would ever have known how they found us, had it not been for this.

Today was an interesting day – November 22, 2018