With Ruth Altshuler at the helm, Dallas
“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.
One misstep will almost certainly lead to national ridicule.
That’s why he called “Ruthie.”
“This event is extremely important in the life of
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
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
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
One of her friends, Molly O’Daniel, was the daughter of Gov. Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel.
In those days, Altshuler’s boyfriend was Charles Storey, who later became a prominent
“Here I am at the governor’s mansion sleeping on Sam Houston’s bed, which was like sleeping on this,” she said, laughing as she leaned forward and rapped her knuckles on a coffee table in her home.
“The Texas Rangers would come upstairs and say, ‘Ms. Collins, Mr. Storey is downstairs waiting for you.’ And there I’d go, just sashaying down the stairs.”
It was thrilling, romantic and Altshuler knew little else until her junior year at
Less than two years later, he was shot down during a World War II bombing raid over
One month shy of her 21st birthday, Altshuler returned to
‘Turning point’
She took a job at Dallas Love Field as a ticket taker, supervised the loading of baggage and sometimes stood on the tarmac guiding planes into their parking spots using hand signals.
Months later, Altshuler met her second husband, Charles Sharp, a local boy who had worked his way through law school at the
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
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
They married on
Altshuler joined the Junior League, a civic group for young women. They took her on a tour of
“We went to
“There was so much need and so much that needed to be done. That was the turning point in my life.”
Charity work
But just as Altshuler’s life work came into focus, her future at home became blurry.
Her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and their son was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness. Her third child, Susan, was born in 1960.
“I had my son running up and down the halls not knowing where he was, and I was up all night with Charles,” she said. “So I had some lean years in there, shall we say.”
In some ways, charity work was her relief.
Altshuler was eventually selected for many boards, including those of the Salvation Army,
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
They broke for lunch a little early on
Altshuler crossed
Her husband picked her up and they drove down
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
“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
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?’”
Her philanthropy thrived, even through the death of her husband, Charles, in 1984. A few years later, she rediscovered love when she married Dr. Ken Altshuler.
She raised millions for the Salvation Army’s Carr P. Collins center, the Dallas Children’s
With phone calls and personal letters, she raises millions.
When Laura Bush asked her to join her Foundation for
“Everyone in
“With her great generosity of spirit, Ruth has bettered every part of our city’s civic life. I’m especially grateful for Ruthie’s friendship.”
In
“When Ruth calls you, you do what she wants you to do,” said former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, a friend for more than 30 years.
“Nobody would ever say ‘no’ to Ruth. If she asks you for 100 percent, you do it, because you know she has already given 200 percent.”
Gerald Turner, president of
“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.
“I just really respect her,” Staubach said. “There are people in life who take out of life, and then you have people who give back with gusto. That’s Ruth.”
Follow Scott Farwell on Twitter at @scottfarwell.
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
Skeptics of JFK assassination official version say they’re
barred from 50th anniversary
By admin
Skeptics of JFK assassination official version say they’re
barred from 50th anniversary
By Edmund DeMarche
By Edmund DeMarche
Published
FoxNews.com
PHOTO
Nov. 22, 1963 : President
John F. Kennedy is slumped in the backseat of this car immediately after being
shot in Dallas
A Washington-based group that has long questioned the
official version of John F. Kennedy’s assassination says the city of Dallas Dealey
Plaza
The Coalition on Political Assassinations has gathered every
year since 1994 at the site where Kennedy was killed by a sniper on Nov. 22, 1963 . The group typically
observes a moment of silence and members often give speeches. But this year it
was denied a permit, the group’s director told FoxNews.com.
“It’s ironic that the city wants to celebrate JFK’s life —
and not his death — at the very place where he was assassinated,” John Judge,
the executive director of the group, said. “They are afraid of the thousands of
people that will come to the site to commemorate his death and call for the
truth.”
The annual gatherings were first loosely organized by
journalist Penn Jones, who was one of the earliest skeptics of the official
explanation of the assassination. Judge was a friend of Jones, who died in
1998.
“When he died, I promised him I would keep the tradition
going,” Judge said.
Although a federal commission studied the shooting and
determined that Lee Harvey Oswald, a socialist drifter and former Marine, had
acted alone, the assassination has long been the subject of conspiracy
theories. Judge said his coalition, which focuses on killings ranging from the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., to recent drone attacks in the Middle
East , has no single theory about how Kennedy was killed. But the
group rejects the findings of the Warren Commission and does not believe
Oswald, who was killed two days after the assassination, played any role in
Kennedy’s death.
Regardless of who killed Kennedy, Judge believes his group
has every right to mark the date at the site.
“This is content-based denial of free speech in a public
park,” Judge wrote on his organization’s website. “Dealey
Plaza
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings denied that the city banned the
coalition from the event, but acknowledged that officials intend to focus on
the late president’s life and ensure the event was open “mainly” to residents
of Dallas
“We make sure that opposing voices are heard in Dallas
In May, Rawlings put together a committee called The 50th
Committee, to organize the anniversary. Most board members were alive to
remember the president’s assassination.
“We have one board member who was waiting for Kennedy at a
luncheon that he never attended,” Rawlings said.
Rawlings, for his part, remembers sitting cross-legged
inside the Leawood Elementary
School Kansas
“I knew it was important,” he recalls. “It was the
president.”
Rawlings said his office has reached out to Judge to discuss
the event.
2 Responses to Skeptics of JFK assassination official
version say they’re barred from 50th anniversary
Douglas Baker
2/02/2012 When in the 60′s and 70′s in down town Dallas we
witnessed against the war in Vietnam, city “Fathers” weren’t happy, it’s no
surprise as the 50th year since President Kennedy was murdered and what really
happened is still largely unknown as to who did it, who the enablers were and
why a decision was made to murder the President in a public way; it’s useful to
remember and perhaps reread George Orwell’s 1984 (the grandchild of Jack
London’s Iron Heel)and be mindful that by controlling the past, you also
control the present and future. This denial is in the tradition of library
burning recently in Timbuktu Afghanistan Dallas United States Dallas Dallas
Back in February, our Louis DeLuca caught Xiao Dong Yu of
China photographing one of the "x's" on Elm
Street
One day after Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings explained how the
city would officially commemorate the 50th anniversary of John Kennedy’s
killing in Dealey Plaza – with a sober event featuring an acclaimed historian, some
solemn music and a few speeches — SMU
sends word it too has a plan to mark the occasion. And, per the announcement
below, the Hilltop is partnering with its newest resident, the George W. Bush
Presidential Library and Museum, as well as the Sixth
Floor Museum Dealey Plaza
Like the city, SMU has
also assembled its own collection of university profs and bold-faced names to
curate the program; together they make up what’s being called the Tower Center
Working Group on Remembrance and Commemoration: The Life and Legacy of JFK.
Among the committee members are George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
Director Alan Lowe; Jeffrey Engel, founding director of SMU ’s
new Center for Presidential History; Ruth Morgan, most recently the chair of Dallas KERA ’s Lee
Cullum.
There aren’t a lot of details about what’ll happen or where
it’ll happen or when it’ll happen or who will make it happen. All we know for
now are the names of the two programs scheduled to bookend the inevitable
look-back: “The Politics of Memory,” due to kick things off on February 18, 2013 , and “Coping With
Crises: How Presidents Manage National Crises,” which closes the program on February 17, 2014 . And, yes, those
happen to be the dates for Presidents Day.
“SMU is looking forward
to bringing an academic and scholarly orientation to the observance of this
somber anniversary,” says SMU political
science prof Dennis Simon in the heads-up that follows. “The Tower
Center Sixth
Floor Museum
DALLAS (SMU ) – SMU
will work in concert with the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
and the Sixth Floor
Museum Dealey
Plaza
The series will begin with “The Politics of Memory” on
President’s Day 2013 (Feb. 18, 2013 )
and end on President’s Day 2014 (Feb.
17, 2014 ) with “Coping With Crises: How Presidents Manage National
Crises,” a program sponsored with the Sixth
Floor Museum
The committee is led by Dennis Simon, SMU
political science associate professor, a fellow in the Tower
Center Tower
Center SMU ’s
new Center for Presidential History and associate professor in the Williams P.
Clements Department of History.
The working group includes William Bridge, SMU
associate professor in the Dedman School of Law; Lee Cullum, journalist and
Tower Center fellow; Kenneth Hamilton, SMU
associate professor in the William P. Clements Department of History and
director of ethnic studies in Dedman College; James Hollifield, SMU
professor of political science and Arnold Fellow of International Political
Economy, director of the Tower Center and chair of the Sixth Floor Museum
Board; Rita Kirk, director of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics &
Public Responsibility at SMU and a professor
in the Division of Communication Studies; Thomas Knock, SMU
associate professor of history and member of the board of trustees of the
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library; Ruth Morgan, former SMU
provost and professor emerita of political science; Daniel Orlovsky, SMU
professor of history and SMU ’s George A.
Bouhe Research Fellow in Russian Studies; and Tom Stone, SMU
senior English lecturer who teaches courses that view the assassination through
the works of writers, artists and scholars.
“SMU is looking forward
to bringing an academic and scholarly orientation to the observance of this
somber anniversary,” Simon said. “The Tower
Center Sixth
Floor Museum
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which houses the
Presidential Library and Museum, will be dedicated in late April 2013.
Details of the JFK-related series will be released as they
become available.
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