Impromptu Gestures Mark 25 Years Since J.F.K. Died

Flowers and messages of love made an impromptu memorial today as people gathered to remember the moment 25 years ago when fatal shots rang out as President John F. Kennedy rode through downtown Dallas.

The city held no official ceremony to mark the passing of a quarter century since Kennedy’s assassination, but hundreds flocked to Dealey Plaza, where he was mortally wounded at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963, both Monday and today.

As the hour passed today, there were about 2,500 people gathered in and around the plaza, most of them on a grassy knoll near the shooting scene. Twenty people clasped hands in a loose chain along the motorcade route.

Someone put a crucifix and two bouquets on Elm Street at the approximate point where Kennedy was hit en route to a speaking engagement.

A note on one said, “We still miss you--Nov. 22.” The second said, “After 25 years, we still love you, John.” Traffic backed up as cars pulled into different lanes on the one-way, three-lane street to avoid hitting the flowers.

‘Representative of an Era’

“We are here because this is an important place in Dallas, an important place in history, what happened here 25 years ago,” said schoolteacher Jean Hill, who was also at the site the day of the assassination. The third-grade teacher brought about 50 youngsters today to view the scene.

She called his death a personal loss, adding, “I thought he was a representative of an era, more than any one person at that time.”

Members of the Kennedy family, who have asked people to mark Kennedy’s birthday, rather than his assassination, observed today in mostly private services elsewhere.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and family members including her son, John, and daughter, Caroline, attended a private Mass at St. Thomas More Church in New York City this morning, spokeswoman Nancy Tuckerman said. They did not plan any public appearances.

White Rose at Runnymede

In Runnymede, England, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) today laid a white rose at the foot of a British memorial to his brother, crossed himself and said a silent prayer.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the late President’s sister, visited his grave and that of her brother Robert, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and said she hopes that people remember “the high points of his life, the laughter and the vision.”

“He was never sad,” she told reporters during an early-morning visit to the graves.

Ethel Kennedy was one of the first people to appear at the cemetery when the gates opened at 8 a.m. She knelt silently before the eternal flame that burns at President Kennedy’s grave, then walked to the nearby burial site of her husband, Robert, who also was slain by an assassin’s bullet.

Former Peace Corps volunteers observed the anniversary of the President’s assassination with a 24-hour vigil in the Capitol Rotunda where his body lay in state before the funeral.