by Jeff Hamlin
WCHL Reporter

The 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy took place when Barbara Rimer was 15 years old. Like everyone else, she was traumatized.

So she pinned a letter to Kennedy’s widow.

Unbeknownst to Rimer, the letter she sent to Jacqueline Kennedy would emerge 46 years later in a book. “Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation” contains 250 letters selected by a historian at the University of New Hampshire. Among them is the one Rimer wrote when she was a high school freshman in Philadelphia.

Now, Rimer is the dean of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC.

Looking back over the letter, Rimer says it brought back memories of her career trajectory. 

While Rimer admits that Kennedy is considered a more complicated man now than during his presidency, many people still grant him leeway because his words were so inspirational and powerful.