The President and Mrs. Kennedy with their children Caroline and John, Jr. listening and watching to the Black Watch Highlanders, the Scottish bagpipers, perform from the White House South Portico, November 13, 1963.
Among the many public projects of Jacqueline Kennedy as First Lady which continue to be overlooked was her ongoing effort to use the expanse of the great South Lawn of the White House as an outdoor space to provide entertainment for various demographics of young people. She organized a lawn reception for foreign exchange students pursuing higher education at American colleges, for example. Another was a ballet performance.
The Black Watch electrified the November chill with the sound of bagpipes and drums.
Perhaps the one which came to assume the greatest significance to the public, however, was the November 13, 1963 performance by the Black Watch of the Royal Highlanders Regiment, the Scottish regimental marching band.
Although Jackie Kennedy had remained at the family’s new weekend home on Rattlesnake Mountain in Atoka, Virginia while her husband returned to the White House with their children, the First Lady had read some time before that the Black Watch would be performing in the Washington area and quickly had their manager contacted to see if they would perform for local school children.
The President and Mrs. Kennedy walked onto the lawn to greet the Back Watch regiment in a small ceremonial gift presentation and remarks by JFK.
They quickly agreed and the White House invited several hundred students and teachers from both local and private schools, including a Catholic grammar school contingency which was escorted there by the nuns who taught them.
As it would turn, the event also became the first and last time where the entire First Family, President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, First Daughter Caroline Kennedy and First Son John Kennedy ever made a public appearance at an official White House event together.
The President and Mrs. Kennedy united with their children on their way to the White House together for the first time, February 1961.
When the family first moved into the White House in January of 1961, John F. Kennedy, Jr. was an infant less than two months old; his sister was just three years and two months old.
Their mother did not want them visible at any of the Inauguration festivities, and not until two weeks later did she have them brought to the White House where they joined with their parents, the furnishing of the children’s rooms in the private quarters by then nearly completed.
From the start, Jackie had famously determined to limit their public exposure, hoping to prevent the sort of extreme self-consciousness in their emotional development which the situation threatened to do.
The President, Mrs. Kennedy and their children outside the Oval Office.
She was especially fearful of the media which had a voracious interest in reporting about and photographing the new President’s children.
Just as famously, Jack Kennedy had no qualms about having his appealing children photographed as often as possible, knowing how it fed public goodwill towards the Administration. When Jackie Kennedy took a lengthy respite with her sister to Greece, Turkey and Morocco at the end of September and early October of 1963, JFK became sole parent for awhile and permitted photographers full access to his children, the period producing some of the most memorable images of him as a father.
John F. Kennedy, Jr. skips along happily his hand in that of his father the President.
By the time Jackie Kennedy returned in mid-October 1963, her children were just weeks away from celebrating their sixth and third birthdays, respectively. They had developed a certain realization that the public and press focus on them when they were seen, mostly at the presidential summer retreat at the family’s Hyannis, Massachusetts compound, did make them different but it had created no particularly negative affect on their maturity.
Jackie Kennedy began to relent about her edict, even conceding to her husband’s desire to bring young John with them to the November 11, 1963 Veterans Day services at Arlington National Cemetery.
Jackie Kennedy carried her son down into the crowds with the President after the Black Watch performance concluded.
And so, two days later, when the Black Watch performed at the White House, the President and Mrs. Kennedy joined the public crowds to take it all in, watching from the South Portico of the White House.
There, along with them, for the first time at a public event, were their children Caroline and John. Little, of course, could anyone realize that this first public appearance of the whole Kennedy family together would also prove to be the last.
Also among the crowds watching were the Presidents sister-in-law and nephew and niece, Joan Kennedy with her son and daughter, Teddy and Kara, and the President’s sister Eunice Shriver, with her son Timothy.
The Kennedys watch and listen to the Black Watch Highlanders.
The performance schedule of the Black Watch Tattoo would have them in Washington, D.C. for the rest of the month. That is why they were able to again accommodate another request of Jackie Kennedy exactly two weeks after their first performance, and perform The Brown-Haired Maiden, The Badge of Scotland, The 51st Highland Division and The Barren Rock of Aden.
The second time, however, was to provide the bagpipe music along the route from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, for the late President’s funeral.
President Kennedy and his children take in the Black Watch bagpipers.
Here is a film of the Black Watch of the Royal Highlanders Regiment at their November 13, 1963 performance on the White House South Lawn, for the first and only public appearance of the Kennedy family together:
Related articles
- Why John F. Kennedy Took His Son to Arlington Cemetery (carlanthonyonline.com)
- Jackie Kennedy’s Surprise Party for Her Confidential Friend of a Lifetime (carlanthonyonline.com)
- JFK Anniversary To Be Marked In Dallas (huffingtonpost.com)
- Jackie Kennedy’s still-living personal assistant, 89, tells People of stoic first lady’s profound JFK assassination heartbreak (pennlive.com)
- Ari & Jackie Onassis: X-Rated Movie, Nude Photos, the Kennedys & Paradise Lost (Part 5) (carlanthonyonline.com)
- “A Tribute to Jackie” Auction (trulyrelentless.wordpress.com)
- Jackie Kennedy: New Details of Her Heartbreak (people.com)
Categories: First Families, First Ladies, History, The Kennedys
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It was a very painful article to read. This story of the Black Watch is a familiar one to Kennedy fans. They looked so happy and content being together as a family. To those of us who are “steeped” in Kennedy lore, we know that Jack & Jackie had to struggle a bit to get their unusual marriage on track; then, to have it all perish in one ugly day in Dallas. The music of the bagpipers is very exotic; and I also recall it powerful and dark.
The video was quite touching as it had such a vibrancy of youth in the audience with young moms and little ones. The Kennedy tale is full of such irony, quirkiness and especially haunting parallels to Lincoln. Great relaying of a nice moment with this beautiful first family.
Breaks my heart. Thank God he had the pipers before he died. He was a peace warrior (I believe there is such a thing). Pipers in peace were so fitting.
I agree. The other piece of music from the Black Watch played is the one used in the video of the “Kennedy Family’s Last Weekend Together.” I think JFK was indeed a “peace warrior” and that so was Eisenhower. I think it was bound them more closely together than separated them.