In this photo that my father made back in the 1950’s, is Secretary of the Navy John Connally shaking hands with United States House of Representative Bob Sikes at Mustin Beach Officers Club aboard Pensacola Naval Air Station home of the Blue Angles. The men in the photo from the left is my father’s good friend Charlie Fredrickson, Dave Johnson president of Fisher-Brown Insurance, Secretary Connally, Representative Sikes and prominent local attorney Richard Merritt. I do not know exactly what the event was but I am sure that it had something to do with the Secretary of the Navy being in Pensacola. Here is a link to Secretary Connally’s Wikipedia page since he was involved with one of the most famous events in United States history … the assassination of President John Kennedy. Connally, Governor of Texas at the time, and his wife were riding in the limousine in Dallas with JFK and Jacquelin Kennedy when Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. One of the bullets passed through Kennedy and struck Connally wounding him. If anyone remembers this event out at the Mustin Officer’s Club, please share any information that you have with us. It might have been something like a Pensacola Chamber of Commerce Banquet or something to that effect. Thanks for looking and please share anything that you might remember about this photo … Frank
UPDATE: After I published this post, I went and read the whole Wikipedia page on John Connally. I know, I know … I should have done that before I started writing the post. He was not Secretary of the Navy until Kennedy became President in 1961 and he did not become come Governor of Texas until later. So, I do not know what his position that he held when this photo was taken. I will have to go and find the print and see if there is a date on the back and will report back to you. I want you to remember that I am not a historian, but a photographer and this site is about photography. But, I do want it to be somewhat factual and I do want the time-line for these photos to be correct ( to a certain point anyway ). I will post another update when I find out something. And I apologize for not just re-doing the entire post, but that would be a lot more effort that I feel like spending on this photo and besides, I am going next door to photograph some more things to post on Ebay … I go by ” garconpoint ” so if you are interested in what I am trying to get rid of, please go and check it out.
