Photographs

Funeral

Press

Pallbearers

Photographer

Casket

Oswald funeral

Newspapers

Gordon, Gene

Oswald, Lee Harvey

Cochran, Mike

McConal, Jon "Bunky"

McGraw, Preston

Horn, Ed

Flemmons, Jerry

Fort Worth Press

Rose Hill Cemetery

Fort Worth

Film

1 3/8 × 1 1/2 in. (3.5 × 3.8 cm)

Gene Gordon Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

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