Public People Are People, Too.

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My research yesterday included the Kennedy and Johnson years in the White House, specifically what their lives were like inside the White House. Again I realized that this history that our family writes is about real live human beings. I wish that Twitter tweeters and Facebook posters and TV reporters and journalists would remember that.

President John F. Kennedy is one of America’s most remembered presidents. Tragically, an assassin cut his life short much too soon. However, long before the great tragedy in Dallas, Republicans and Democrats alike were pretty hard on Kennedy. He hadn’t been in office quite three months when he ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion to begin. It turned out to be a disaster.

Yes, Kennedy was president; and yes, he made mistakes, sometimes big mistakes, but he was also a human being. He was a father of little children. By the time Kennedy was elected president, he and Jackie had already lost one baby. Their daughter, Caroline, turned three years old about three weeks after Election Day, just days after the birth of John Jr.

So, while JFK was hosting foreign dignitaries and making monumental presidential decisions and Jackie was serving as an active first lady, they were being mama and daddy to two young children. They played with their children in John Jr.’s nursery.

Caroline, John, John Jr., and Jacqueline Kennedy.

They played outside.

Jacqueline Kennedy pulls John Jr. on a sled on the White House lawn.

They juggled work and family.

Caroline Kennedy rides her pony, Macaroni, a gift from Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

A short time after Kennedy died, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson stood on Air Force One, between his wife, Lady Bird, and Kennedy’s widow, to take the oath of office as the new president.

Johnson takes the oath of office on Air Force One.

As president, Johnson sent troops to Vietnam. He and the country suffered through protests and riots and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy’s brother, Robert. Johnson was like all people. He did right sometimes and wrong sometimes.

Johnson, too, had a beloved family. His two teenage daughters entertained their friends in the sunroom where Jackie Kennedy had started a preschool for Caroline. Both girls married while the Johnsons were in the White House. Lynda decided to have her wedding at the White House.

Lyndon Johnson, father of the bride, and his daughter Lynda

The Johnson’s first grandchild, Patrick Lyndon, was born in those years.

Luci and Patrick Lyndon Nugent with their father and grandfather.

The Johnson’s first granddaughter, Lucinda, was also born during his presidency.

Lynda and Lucinda Robb

Patrick Lyndon Nugent even got his first haircut at the White House barber shop.

Public people are people, too. We need to rear a generation of American children who will grow up and treat people for what they are, a generation who will love their neighbors as themselves. Anyone can bite and devour. It takes Jesus’ power to love our neighbors as ourselves.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;
only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh,
but serve one another through love.
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But if you bite and devour one another,
take care that you are not consumed by one another.
Galatians 5:13-15

All Kennedy family photos are courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. All Johnson family photos are courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson President Library and Museum.

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