Image of law enforcement checking press credentials at Carswell Air Force Base
When photographer Gene Gordon reviewed his images during a Museum oral history on June 23, 2015, he indicated that the man who is receiving or having his press credentials checked in this photo might be Gordon's Fort Worth Press colleague, John Ohendahlski.
John Lee Ohensalski (1928-2008) was a reporter and city editor at the Fort Worth Press for twelve years, where he met and married his wife, Latryl Layton, a Fort Worth Press editor and columnist. The Ohensalskis attended the Chamber of Commerce breakfast for President Kennedy at the Hotel Texas the morning after this photograph was taken. Ohensalski left the Fort Worth Press for a position at Texas Christian University in 1966. - Stephen Fagin, Curator
Gene Henderson Gordon (1929 - 2023) got his first job as a professional photographer at the age of 19 in 1948 at the Fort Worth Press, a Scripps-Howard newspaper launched in 1921. Less than five years later, Gordon was promoted to chief photographer, a position that he still held at the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963. Gordon covered the Kennedys' arrival at Carswell Air Force Base on the night on November 21st and, a few hours later, President Kennedy's parking lot speech at the Hotel Texas and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast in the hotel's ballroom. Following the assassination, he covered the funeral of Lee Harvey Oswald at Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth on November 25th. Gene Gordon remained at the Fort Worth Press until the paper ceased publication in 1975, after which he became a staff photographer, later chief photographer, at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He retired in 1997 after half a century as a professional photographer in Fort Worth.
We were honored to record oral history interviews with Gene in 2003 and 2015. He also participated in two programs at The Sixth Floor Museum, including this Living History educational program in 2017: Living History with Gene Gordon (youtube.com). The Museum acquired his collection of Kennedy-related negatives and prints in 2014 and 2016. Gene Gordon passed away on March 16, 2023. - Stephen Fagin, Curator