Presidential Inauguration, 1969

Fifty-two (wow!) years ago today, I left on a trip to Washington, D. C., to witness the inauguration of Richard Nixon to his first term of office.  The trip was the prize in an essay contest I'd won.  

Below is a picture of me, the three other winners, and our chaperone leaving from Houston on January 18, 1969.  From the bottom going up, pictured are Polly Joslin, fifth grade winner from Alice, Texas; me (sixth grade winner), Jacqueline Plumber, eighth grade winner from Port Arthur, Texas; Virginia Hancock, seventh grade winner from Houston; and Marie Watkins, Virginia's English teacher at Johnston Junior High in Houston, selected as our chaperone (likely because we other three winners all attended Catholic schools).

I got to thinking about this trip with the upcoming inauguration of Joe Biden as our 46th president, and all the extra security thanks to the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.  I do remember heightened security at this 1969 inauguration.  Washington DC was full of Vietnam War protesters, and a planned visit to the Washington Monument by our group on Sunday, January 19, had to be cancelled, as the protestors were using the monument grounds as their base of operations.

After the trip, the Kroger Company (which sponsored the contest and paid for the trip) sent the winners a number of 8x10 black-and-white photos taken during our trip.  Here is one of the inauguration ceremony on January 20, 1969.  As you can see, we were pretty far from the Capitol, and there were policemen around.  Only a limited number of invited guests were allowed on the Capitol grounds.  

Here is the picture I took during the inauguration ceremony.  I had an even worse view than the official Kroger photographer.  There were loudspeakers, but I also remember not being able to hear what was going on, especially with crowd noise.  And it was cold - the temperature at the swearing-in at noon was 35°F.  It was cloudy with rain and sleet later in the day.  My Texas-weight coat wasn't really warm enough, and I was wearing a dress with tights.  I didn't own any pantsuits at age 11, attending a Catholic school with uniforms!

I do remember the inaugural parade.  For this, we had assigned seats in the stands along the route - Stand 29, Section E, supposedly seat 14 in row 3, although I think the Kroger group, with winners from all over the country (I shared a hotel room with sixth-grade girls from Pennsylvania and Connecticut) simply filled this section randomly.  We were on the top row of the stands, I think with blankets on our legs, and people standing behind us that helped keep us fairly warm.

Below is an enlargement of the picture the Kroger photographer took of the winners in the stands.  I was able to find our Texas group, outlined in the yellow box below, and myself, with the yellow arrow pointing to me.

We had a really good view of the parade from the stands, and that was the best part of this whole trip.  I took the picture below of the Up with People singers riding the "Forward Together" theme float in the parade on January 20, 1969.

We had a whirlwind tour of Washington in two-and-a-half days.  We saw Arlington National Cemetery (the graves of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers), the Iwo Jima Monument, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, Mount Vernon, and also drove through Alexandria, Virginia, all on the first full day (January 19, 1969).  We also drove down Embassy Row, saw the outside of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and visited the National Air & Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution on Inauguration Day.  On our last half-day, we visited the Bureau of Printing and Engraving (very interesting!), the National Archives, and the Capitol.  Besides the Washington Monument, the only other place on our itinerary that we could not see was the Federal Bureau of Investigation - perhaps due to the presence of protestors in town, but more likely because we simply did not have time.  I'd like to go back to DC some day and visit all of these places again.

© Amanda Pape - 2021 - e-mail me!