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Image of pallbearers carrying Lee Harvey Oswald's casket
Image of pallbearers carrying Lee Harvey Oswald's casket

Image of pallbearers carrying Lee Harvey Oswald's casket

Object number2014.087.0095
Date11/25/1963
ClassificationsPhotographs
Photographer Gene Gordon
ObjectNegative (b&w)
Credit LineGene Gordon Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumFilm
Dimensions1 3/8 × 1 1/2 in. (3.5 × 3.8 cm)
DescriptionOne original 35mm black and white negative taken by Gene Gordon, the chief photographer of the Fort Worth Press, of the funeral of Lee Harvey Oswald. The funeral took place at Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas on Monday, November 25, 1963. Pallbearers carry Oswald's casket to the gravesite. Reporters were asked to serve as pallbearers because there were not enough funeral attendees. Three of the pallbearers are unidentified: the man in front in the foreground wearing glasses; the man at the back end of the casket wearing glasses, and the man concealed by the first unidentified man. The other reporters are: Mike Cochran, Associated Press (AP); Ed Horn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jerry Flemmons; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jon "Bunky" McConal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Preston McGraw, United Press International (UPI).
Curatorial Commentary

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

Four of the pallbearers seen in this photograph (Jerry Flemmons, Jon McConal, Mike Cochran, and Preston McGraw) recorded oral histories with the Museum. As of October 2021, Mike Cochran is the last known surviving pallbearer from the Oswald funeral. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator