Sherry Simmons Oral History

Object number2009.001.0022

Date03/30/2009

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Sherry Simmons

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file)

DimensionsDuration: 44 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Sherry Simmons. As a sixteen-year-old Simmons saw President and Mrs. Kennedy at Dallas Love Field on November 22, 1963. At the time, she worked part-time as a long-distance switchboard operator, and she recalled that, following the Kennedy assassination, she was occasionally disconnected because she was calling from Dallas. Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on March 30, 2009 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is forty-four minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

Sherry Simmons passed away on August 24, 2017 at the age of 70. She was at Dallas Love Field on November 22, 1963, with her sister, Rose Marie Simmons, who recorded an oral history with the Museum in 2002 and later participated in Living History programs in 2008 and 2009. One of Rose Marie's programs, recorded March 30, 2009 (the same day as this oral history with Sherry Simmons), may be viewed here: Living History with Rose Marie Simmons.

As discussed in this oral history, Sherry Simmons was not as close as her sister to the fence at Dallas Love Field and did not have a personal encounter with the Kennedys. Rose Marie Simmons, on the other hand, shook hands with President Kennedy and asked him for an autograph, being advised by the president to write to his secretary. After the passing of Rose Marie Simmons in 2012, sister Sherry donated to the Museum the framed White House letter and photo that Rose Marie received from the late president's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, after the assassination. The Rose Marie Simmons Collection (2012.030) also includes Rose Marie's 1964 W.W. Samuell High School yearbook and a 1960 letter from the Kennedy campaign. - Stephen Fagin, Curator