JFK birthplace will open on assassination anniversary

“We wanted to keep the site open and available as much as possible, and commemorate as many anniversaries as possible this year,” explained Swartz who also works at the Frederick Law Olmstead National Historic site, also in Brookline.

The openings were further facilitated by a small increase in the site’s base budget this year, Swartz said.

In addition, Swartz said, time is running out to collect the memories of those who witnessed a November 25, 1963 memorial, held outside the 83 Beals St home three days after the assassination.

“We want to collect the oral history of that ceremony,” he said. “We are acutely aware that the population that attended that is aging, and this is an opportunity that will diminish over the years.”

Initially, the park service will just collect names and contact information of anyone who recalls that memorial service. The park service hopes to eventually hire an ethnographer to collect the stories of that day and of the establishment of the site, Swartz said.

The park service is also looking to document the period when the house went from a single-family home on a back street in Brookline to an historic monument, Swartz said.

That process started in 1961, when the Town of Brookline placed a plaque at 83 Beals Street home, to mark it as the birthplace of the new president. The home was at that point owned privately, Swartz said. By the time of Kennedy’s assassination, it was still privately owned, he said.

A nephew of Rose Kennedy’s, Joe Gargan, bought the house in 1966, Swartz said. Rose restored it to what she recalled it looked like in 1917, the year JFK was born, donating it to the nation in 1969.

For details on the house, visit www.nps.gov/jofi.

Andreae Downs can be reached at andreaedowns@yahoo.com.