With Ruth Altshuler at the helm, Dallas’ painful JFK memorial is in experienced hands

Ruth Collins Sharp Altschuler is the chairwoman of the special events planning committee for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. COPA called and wrote to her upon the appointment of the committee last year to ask to be represented on the committee so that our annual event, a Moment of Silence on the Grassy Knoll, held for 49 years, would be included. We were concerned because the director of the Sixth Floor Museum had secured an exclusive permit for the whole of Dealey Plaza and was quoted saying she did not want “conspiracy theory” in the Dallas Morning News.

In our view, this is content-based denial of free speech and expression, prohibited by the First Amendment, especially in a public park, a designated National Historical Landmark and especially on any November 22 at 12:30 pm. The director also wrote to us to say the museum would “simply suggest we set aside the national and international press attention to his [JFK’s] death to another moment”. What moment would it be?

Ruth Altschuler told me we could not be on the committee and then wrote in response to my request that they accommodate our event and let us meet with them, “I have no authority in these matters.” After that, we learned that the Sixth Floor had withdrawn its permit days before we legally applied for ours, only to be turned down by the City of Dallas because the Mayor had other plans for the site. In this article we read the source of the issue –
“[Dallas Mayor] Rawlings pressed on about how the ceremony needed to be somber and dignified — no circus or crazy conspiracy stuff. Focus on Kennedy’s legacy, not the tragedy.” The City of Dallas does not want a Moment of Silence, they want a perpetuity of silence. They want closure through denial.

The excerpted article from the Dallas Morning News tells the rest of the story. For the full article, see: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20130202-with-ruth-altshuler-at-the-helm-dallas-painful-jfk-memorial-is-in-experienced-hands.ece

With Ruth Altshuler at the helm, Dallas’ painful JFK memorial is in experienced hands
By SCOTT FARWELL, Staff Writer
sfarwell@dallasnews.com
Dallas Morning News
Published: 02 February 2013 11:51 PM

“No” isn’t a word Ruth Altshuler hears much, and it’s one she doesn’t like to use either.

But last June when Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings called her Park Cities home, 88-year-old Altshuler — the city’s grande dame of raising money and running things — knew what he wanted.

And she was ready to politely, but firmly, decline.

Rawlings needed someone to plan this year’s ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And he knew it would be tricky.

Nov. 22, 1963, is the most painful day in Dallas’ history — one that lives on in the civic psyche — and a first-term mayor’s greatest fear is an old scab being ripped off a deep wound in public.

One misstep will almost certainly lead to national ridicule.

That’s why he called “Ruthie.”

“This event is extremely important in the life of Dallas,” Rawlings said. “I wanted someone who had a lot of experience leading important projects, somebody who knew Dallas and knew what Dallas was all about, and someone great at dealing with the human quality of something like this.”

Altshuler demurred when Rawlings popped the question.

Too old, she suggested. Too busy. Too out of touch.

Altshuler is the kind of woman who’s lived much of her life being pursued — for her classic beauty, and her money. She wanted the mayor to work for it.

He obliged.

Rawlings pressed on about how the ceremony needed to be somber and dignified — no circus or crazy conspiracy stuff. Focus on Kennedy’s legacy, not the tragedy.

In short, it should be an event befitting the memory of one of our nation’s young lions.

He paused, then nudged, “Do it for Dallas.”

Altshuler laughed her trademark laugh — a warm and velvety, low-in-the-throat alto — and said, “I’m over the hill, but I’ll come back over the hill.”

And so began what may be her defining public-service project in a life that has largely been devoted to philanthropy.

Childhood

Altshuler grew up in a grand old home on Swiss Avenue, the youngest child and only daughter of Ruth and Carr P. Collins.

Her father founded Fidelity Union Life Insurance Co. in 1927, which eventually grew into one of the largest businesses of its kind in the nation.

Prosperity sheltered the young Ruth and her two brothers — Carr P. Collins Jr. and James M. Collins — from the suffering of the Great Depression.

Altshuler’s early life was cushioned by a family nurse, a Ford convertible and a blithe sense of entitlement.

Her summers were spent canoeing at Camp Waldemar, an exclusive girls’ camp in the Texas Hill Country, and many weekends she slept at the Texas Governor’s Mansion.

One of her friends, Molly O’Daniel, was the daughter of Gov. Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel…

Months later, Altshuler met her second husband, Charles Sharp, a local boy who had worked his way through law school at the University of Texas and had a year under his belt at Harvard.

He was poor and didn’t have a car, but to a young Altshuler, he was irresistible.

“He was the best-looking man I ever saw,” she said, eyes shining. “And in those days, looks were No. 1 on my list and whether they were a good dancer was No. 2.

“Integrity came in something like 14, and honesty was 17.”

During their courtship, Sharp was assigned to a Navy shipyard in Rhode Island, where he taught young officers how to command PT boats.

One of his students: Lt. John F. Kennedy.

“They certainly weren’t intimate friends, but I know he was in one or two of Charles’ classes,” said Altshuler. “I always thought it was funny they had Charles there as a trainer, because he had never even been out on White Rock Lake in a rowboat.”…

Charity work

…Altshuler was eventually selected for many boards, including those of the Salvation Army, United Way and SMU — and in each case, she rose to be the first female chairman.

Altshuler confesses she felt a few jitters when she was invited into the city’s male-dominated inner sanctum of power, but they faded quickly.

“I’m one of those people who are often wrong, but seldom in doubt,” she said. “I have a strong personality, and you have to have confidence when you’re asking to be president of some of these things.”

In 1963, she got a call from Joe Dealey, publisher of The Dallas Morning News.

“You’re going to get a subpoena,” he said. “I’m on the nominating committee, and you’re going to be the first woman we’ve ever asked to be on the grand jury.”

Altshuler found the work fascinating.

She showed up each morning around 8 at the Old Records Building in downtown Dallas and listened as prosecutors presented cases for indictment.

They broke for lunch a little early on Nov. 22, 1963 — a Friday — because Kennedy was coming to town.

Altshuler crossed Houston Street and stood on the corner of the Texas School Book Depository, where minutes later and six stories up, Lee Harvey Oswald would prepare a sniper’s nest.

Her husband picked her up and they drove down Elm Street, under the overpass and out to the old Dallas Trade Mart, where local dignitaries waited to greet the young president.

Eventually, the press corps filed in to the luncheon. A few minutes later, they all ran out.

J. Erik Jonsson, the co-founder of Texas Instruments who would eventually become Dallas’ mayor, stepped to the podium.

“I’m saddened to tell you the president has been shot,” he said.

The Rev. Luther Holcomb rose and recited a prayer.

“We were sort of numb and everybody just started walking out,” Altshuler said. “By the time we go to our cars, word had gotten out that he was dead. People were just sobbing everywhere.”

The next day, Altshuler and others began a fundraising campaign for the children of J.D. Tippit, the Dallas police officer shot to death by Oswald after the assassination. It raised $650,000.

Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald on Sunday.

Monday morning, Altshuler was on the grand jury that handed down the indictment.

Interesting life

“Life has not been wasted on me, that’s for sure,” Altshuler said. “I’ve just been fortunate to meet all these interesting people in all these interesting situations.”

The list includes four presidents — Reagan, both Bushes and Obama, whom she met in 2009 when her friend Nancy Brinker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

“He saw me and just came over and gave me a high-five,” she said. “And then he bent over and kissed me and I thought, ‘Who is this man?’”…

When Laura Bush asked her to join her Foundation for America’s Libraries, Altshuler sat down and wrote 20 letters to her friends asking for $1 million apiece. She got $7 million.

“Everyone in Dallas knows that the easiest way to make sure a project is successful is to have Ruth Altshuler on your side,” Laura Bush wrote in an email…

Gerald Turner, president of SMU, where Altshuler has been a trustee for 46 years, has a similar story.

“I always tell people Ken Altshuler and I have a lot in common,” he said. “We both get up every morning and do what Ruth tells us to do.”

Power of persuasion

That power of persuasion is exactly why Rawlings asked Altshuler to lead the commemoration of the JFK assassination this fall.

“Ruth’s life has been one of understated grace and a sense of class, and that’s what I want to make sure we have in this event,” Rawlings said.

“She’s not a big talker. She’s not flashy, but she’s a go-getter and she gets things done.”

You can already see results.

Altshuler called an old friend — author David McCullough, who is known as America’s historian — and asked him to write and deliver remarks at the 50th anniversary ceremony.

A local admiral arranged for a 63-man Navy choir to perform.

Staubach, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, is working on a flyover…

BACKGROUND: Honors and awards

Major honors and appointments:
Library of Congress Trust Fund Board, appointed by President George W. Bush
U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, appointed by Secretary of State Colin Powell
First person in the U.S. to receive all three of these national honors: Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year; United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society Award; Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges
Salvation Army’s Order of Distinguished Auxiliary Service
Trustee of the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries

Local and state awards:
Texas Women’s Hall of Fame
Life trustee of The Hockaday School
Honorary chairman of the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center and Dallas Summer Musicals
Past chairman of Communities Foundation of Texas
J. Erik Jonsson Ethics Award
SMU Distinguished Alumni Award
SMU trustee for 46 years