A Catholic priest born in Perryville stood over the dying body of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.
Thirty minutes earlier, he had been smiling as he watched the president’s motorcade pass through Dallas.
Then history turned.
More than six decades after the assassination that stunned the nation, Springfield resident Keith Garrison has devoted years to researching that day — and to making sure Father Oscar Huber’s role in it is remembered with accuracy, dignity and faith.
A LIFETIME CHASING FACTS
Garrison began researching the Kennedy assassination in the 1980s. What started as a school paper grew into a decades-long investigation driven by one principle: facts only.
“I want the truth,” he said in a recent interview. “There’s a lot of speculation. I’m interested in the evidence.”
His research has taken him to Dallas more than two dozen times. He has interviewed more than 60 witnesses — including people in Dealey Plaza, Parkland Hospital staff, Secret Service agents, Texas School Book Depository employees, hotel staff who served Kennedy breakfast that morning in Fort Worth, and even Lee Harvey Oswald’s brother.
He has combed archives at DePaul University in Chicago, where Father Huber’s personal papers and effects are preserved — including the prayer book Huber carried the day Kennedy was shot.
After decades of study, Garrison has reached a conclusion that puts him in the minority among many in his generation.
“I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,” he said.
He points to eyewitness testimony, three shell casings recovered beneath the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald’s fingerprints, and the shooting of Officer J.D. Tippit later that afternoon. Over time, he said, the physical evidence and firsthand interviews convinced him.
Yet for Garrison, the emotional center of Nov. 22 is not Oswald.
It is Father Huber.
FROM PARADE ROUTE TO TRAUMA ROOM
On the morning of the assassination, Father Huber walked a block from Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Dallas to watch the motorcade. Kennedy — the nation’s first Catholic president — appeared tan, vibrant and smiling.
Huber had never seen a president in person before.
After returning to the rectory for lunch, news broke that Kennedy had been shot. Parkland Hospital was in Holy Trinity’s parish boundaries. Huber and another priest rushed to the emergency room.
The scene was chaos.
And then there was the president.
Huber had seen him alive less than half an hour earlier. Now he stood in Trauma Room One, looking at a man whose body lay covered by a sheet, eyes open, a faint, dying heartbeat still present.
Blood covered Jacqueline Kennedy’s skirt and stockings. She appeared composed, yet clearly in shock.
Huber knew what his duty was.
He administered the sacraments of Extreme Unction and absolution to the unconscious president. He recited the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer. Others in the room joined quietly.
When he finished, Mrs. Kennedy asked him a question that has echoed through history:
“Father, do you believe the sacraments had effect?”
Huber told her he believed the president’s soul had not yet left his body — words that carried profound theological meaning in Catholic belief and, in that moment, deep comfort.
For Garrison, that exchange defines the day.
“This wasn’t about politics,” he said. “It was about tending to the spiritual needs of a dying man and his grieving wife.”
A QUOTE THAT FOLLOWED HIM
As priests left the hospital, reporters pressed for information. A quote later attributed to Huber — “He’s dead, all right” — appeared in Time magazine.
Huber denied until his death that he ever uttered those words.
Garrison believes the mayhem of the hospital scene — multiple priests arriving, rumors circulating that other officials had been shot — likely led to a misattribution.
“He was a discreet, loyal man,” Garrison said. “He took personal injury to being misquoted.”
Huber eventually returned to Perryville in retirement and died here, at the seminary where he is buried. In Dallas, Holy Trinity Catholic Church still holds a Mass every Nov. 22 in memory of President Kennedy — a tradition Huber began after promising Mrs. Kennedy he would pray for her husband.
ORDINARY PEOPLE, EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY
Garrison said what strikes him most is how ordinary people were swept into that moment — from the schoolchildren lining the streets to secretaries, police officers and priests.
“They didn’t know they were stepping into history,” he said. “They were just going to see the president.”
Father Huber did not seek recognition. He simply answered a call
History remembers the gunshots in Dealey Plaza.
Perryville remembers the priest who prayed.
