SHAMOKIN - When Metro Kowalchick, the man who pressed the button to lower John F. Kennedy's casket into the ground in 1963, retired in 1979, The News-Item dubbed him the last man to touch the assassinated president.
While Kowalchick has since passed away, his daughter, Diane Waltrip, was emotional while discussing her late father earlier this week via telephone interview from her home in Montross, Va.
"It was a very big sense of pride (for him). My father was such a humble, honorable man, a quiet guy. He was very, very proud to have that honor. I'm going to cry just thinking about it," Waltrip, 66, said Tuesday.
Kowalchick, a Centralia native and former coal miner, received a letter of commendation from the Pentagon for his work that day in 1963 as the operations chief and deputy superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery. When he retired, a co-worker had the shovel used to dig Kennedy's grave nickel-plated as a gift.
Waltrip still has that shovel in her home, along with countless photographs and mementos of her father's job at the national cemetery.
'Best stories'
Kowalchick's story is featured as one of more than 100 tales in "Best Little Stories From The White House" by C. Brian Kelley with Ingrid Smyer.
He, Sylvester Smith and Clifton Pollard dug the grave at a spot chosen by the Kennedy family; it overlooks the Memorial Bridge leading into Washington, D.C.
In an article by Blaine Harden published in the Pittsburgh Press in May 1979, Kowalchick said, "After the ceremony on Monday, we worked all night preparing the grave so that people could visit on Tuesday. There was so much pressure and we were all so tired, it has all become a blur now."
After chasing the news media out after the crowds left after the funeral, Kowalchick told Kelley they "soldered the casket and backfilled the grave by hand. I felt far, far away. I was in a kind of daze looking out. It was the longest day of my life."
Kowalchick described in the book that they dug down 7 feet, deep enough for Kennedy's wife to be buried there, too.
"The soil has hard clay; there was a big oak tree there," he said.
When the crowds left, he was the one who pressed the button on the grave site lowering device.
"It was chrome plated with green straps. It's got a ratchet device that lowers the casket down," he said.
Later that night, after the crowds left, he and Waltrip escorted Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy back into the cemetery so they could see the grave without anyone else there.
Protect the president
Waltrip, who said she was 16 and living in one of the three houses in the cemetery in 1963, remembers her father realizing the grave and eternal flame would need protecting. He instructed cemetery crews to rip up the white picket fence around the Kowalchick home and place it around Kennedy's plot.
"They put all the wreaths from other countries around the fence. That's what protected the grave side for months and months: our backyard fence," she said.
Big Boss
Kowalchick felt a connection to JFK.
"I don't know that I can explain my feelings. I was very touched with JFK, right from the beginning," he told Kelley.
Waltrip said, "To him, it was such an honor. He loved Kennedy because he was our first Catholic president."
The nickel-plated shovel says "From S. Smith to Big Boss."
"I treasure it very much," Kowalchick said in the book.
Among the dignitaries, Kowalchick also escorted the late Pope John Paul II when he was still Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow, and the Queen of England around the cemetery as well.
For his service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Kowalchick was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal for Heroism in Ground Combat at Cherboug, France, Combat Infantry Badge, Bronze Star Medal with first oak leaf cluster, Good Conduct Medal, Presidential Unit Emblem, Meritorious Unit Emblem, National Defense Medal and American Campaign Medal with four bronze stars.
Kowalchick retired twice from the cemetery. After Kowalchick retired the final time, he returned home to Centralia. His wife, Lillian, passed away in 2007. Kowalchick was 88 when he passed away of old age July 6, 2008, in Montross, Va., at the home of Waltrip and her husband, Brad. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
His daughter, Mary Hamlett, and husband, James, live in Tennessee. His son, Jack Pensyl, and wife, Dot, live in Mount Carmel.
Kowalchick also has countless cousins, nephews and nieces in Mount Carmel, Elysburg, Shamokin and Coal Township.