The Kennedy-Huxley-Lewis Connection

After an assassin's bullets killed President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963, all other world news seemed muffled. Perhaps that's why the deaths of two other well-known men that day were pushed aside.

After an assassin's bullets killed President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963, all other world news seemed muffled. The handsome politician, just 46 years old, drew the biggest headlines because his death was dramatic and public, leaving his widow soaked with his blood and his small children fatherless.

Perhaps that's why the deaths of two other well-known men that day were pushed aside. Philosopher Aldous Huxley, the 69-year-old author of Brave New World, died in California. Christian scholar C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia series, died in England at 64. Both men had been ill.

The three deaths were clearly unrelated, but that hasn't stopped writers from bundling them: In 1982, Boston College professor Peter Kreeft linked the men through their shared Christian faith in Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death With John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis EXT_TEXT OMITTED, a novel that imagines the three meeting in the hereafter and discussing their different views on the afterlife.

More recently, on the 50th anniversary of the deaths in 2013, columnist Cal Thomas noted that while Kennedy's death received the most press, Lewis was the most influential person both during his lifetime and in the years since, as his writings on Christianity have changed countless lives.

Legacy asked British writer John Garth to share his thoughts on the JFK-Huxley-Lewis connection. Garth originally pondered the ties between the "three towering figures of the 20th century" last year in the Oxford American magazine. A noted authority on the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien, he is the author of Tolkien and the Great War and the new Tolkien at Exeter. He speaks regularly at conferences and universities around the world on a variety of subjects.

Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. Her lifelong love of obituaries raised eyebrows when she was younger, but she's now able to explain that this interest goes beyond morbid curiosity. Says Pompilio, "Obituaries are mini life stories, allowing a glimpse into someone's world that we're often denied. I just wish we could share them with each other when we're alive."