Abbeville resident recalls living in Dallas during the shooting of Kennedy

In your life there are certain days that will never be forgotten, days that you remember with crystal-clear vision.
Like many of the time, Joy Watkins McClanahan remembers Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, in such a way.
McClanahan was at her home in Dallas.
“The feeling around the city,” McClanahan remembers, “it was unreal. It was devastating for everybody in the world. It really hit home for those who lived there.
“It was unreal.”
It is because she lived there at the time that McClanahan has a piece of that history.
“I have three editions of the paper from the day he was assassinated and the next two days,” said McClanahan, who has lived in Abbeville since 1975.
McClanahan still has those three copies of the Dallas Times Herald. They are papers that do help to remember that tragic day in American history. McClanahan’s excitement for the day started when Air Force One landed in Dallas.
“I had two babies at that time; one was three and one was 21 months,” McClanahan said of her two oldest sons. “We had the TV on and we were watching the President and Mrs. Kennedy get off the plane. I was talking to my boys and trying to explain to them what little they could understand.
“They were very observant.”
After watching for a bit, McClanahan turned the TV off to spend time with her sons.
“A little while later the phone rang,” McClanahan said. “It was one of my best, best friends. She said, ‘Joy, the President is dead. He has been shot.’ She was always a jokester. I told her, Jane don’t talk like that.
That is nothing to joke about.”
McClanahan’s friend remained persistent.
“She told me she was serious and to turn the TV on,” McClanahan said. “So I turned the TV on.
“It was right there.”
McClanahan remained glued.
“We watched on national TV when they were carrying (Lee Harvey) Oswald and he was shot,” McClanahan remembers. “All this comes back to you.
““You watch them get off the plane, turn the TV off to spend time with your children and then, boom, he is gone.”
It is now 50 years later and myriad shows have run recently on the event. McClanahan has tried to watch some of the programs.
“I probably watched a third of the Kennedy movie and I just couldn’t watch anymore,” she said. “My heart just wouldn’t let me watch it. It is heavy on my heart when I talk about it.”
McClanahan understands, for all the day’s tragedy, its importance. That is why she will never get rid of the three copies of the Dallas Times Herald.
“Never,” she said. “They were special to my heart at the time and I just kept them.
“They have traveled a long way in 50 years in the same brown paper bag.”
That includes to the Abbeville High School history classes of McClanahan’s sons, Robert Watkins, Ronald Watkins, Hugh Watkins and Kyle Watkins, as well her granddaughter, Shantelle Watkins, a 2013 graduate.
“They brought them to school because nobody had anything like this in their history classes,” McClanahan said. “They were able to bring something authentic.”
McClanahan’s feelings of 50 years ago remain authentic as well. She greatly respected Kennedy.
“I very much respected the office and I respected him,” McClanahan said. “A lot of people disagreed with his policies and we have a right to do that. He was leader and I respected him for that.
“I was just numb that day.”