|
Soapbox Philsophy: 50th year since Hoover’s state funeral
by Gregory R. Norfleet · Op-Ed · July 11, 2014
Jerry Fleagle and the Hoover Presidential Foundation want big things for the Hoover Complex, and with this year marking the 50th anniversary since the 31st president passed away, they want to bring grandeur and class.
One bit of trivia: The state funeral for President John F. Kennedy was modeled after the one being prepared for Herbert Hoover. Hoover lived to be 90 years old, but his health ebbed and flowed leading up to that time enough that he gave friends and family a couple of scares.
One of his last few public events was attending the dedication of his presidential library-museum. Preparations for a state funeral started early due to his health, though it was unknown at the time that these preparations were, indeed, “early.”
And then Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy in November 1963. At 46, Kennedy was the youngest president to die and, naturally, no one was prepared to lay him to rest. So it was decided to adopt the outline of Hoover’s funeral plans, though some of the details had to be changed.
That is what Fleagle, as executive director of the Hoover Foundation, plans to do this year. Of course, many of the participants in Hoover’s funeral are long gone. But Fleagle hopes to recreate many of the aspects of the 3 p.m. Oct. 25, 1964, service, in one set at 3 p.m. Oct. 25, 2014.
Fifty years ago, an estimated 75,000 people filled this small Iowa town. Fleagle figures it had to be the largest crowd in the town’s history, and I have to assume he’s correct. So what kind of crowd will it draw in 2014? No way to tell, but Fleagle and his team in the yellow house up on the hill near Parkside Drive seem to have the qualifications, resources and passion to recreate the state funeral with the appropriate ambiance, style and importance.
Fleagle showed me an aerial photograph taken during the state funeral that reflects the scene around the loop road as the procession drew to a stop in front of the gravesite. Interestingly, the prairie to the south, near Interstate 80, was filled with cars. Yet no one -- not a single person -- stood in the grass inside the loop road. A group of people stood around the gravesite area, but a vast majority made a rectangle around the property, behind fencing, watching from a distance.
I’m going to guess with a high degree of confidence that the 50th anniversary of that state funeral will allow all visitors to come in much closer, at least as close as can be reasonably expected. The setting has changed around the loop road, too. Quite a few trees have popped up in the last 50 years and landscaping now adorns the gravesite, providing a lush backdrop to the marble stones that mark the burial places of President Herbert Hoover and First Lady Lou Henry Hoover.
I’ve never seen a state funeral in person. I remember seeing President Ronald Reagan’s on TV, but I imagine the significance of the event is best captured by standing in the presence of the event itself.
That is what the Hoover Foundation hopes to capture in this re-enactment and remembrance of the Great Humanitarian. And I’m certain they will.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
