Photo of Dealey Plaza with flowers the morning after the assassination
The printed sign beneath the large white cross in this photograph read in full: "In Prayerful Memory of Our Beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Men of St. Bernard's Church." St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church is still located in the Little Forest Hills section of Dallas near White Rock Lake on the site where it was originally established in 1947. The founding pastor, Monsignor John M. Wiewell, was still at St. Bernard's at the time of the assassination, serving the church from 1947 to 1968. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
Dealey Plaza was transformed into a memorial shrine during the weekend of the assassination as mourners left wreaths, floral displays and notecards in memory of President Kennedy. One plaza visitor, George Reid, recalled in his Museum oral history: "People were starting to leave things and then, by Sunday morning, there was quite a bit of stuff there--quite a lot of flowers.... And people were coming down there, and people were standing there crying. People just bawling and just talking to each other, hugging each other, you know. It was an emotional scene that day." -- Stephen Fagin, Curator
