Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy onassis

JACQUELINE LEE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS

Birth:

Place: Southampton Hospital, Southampton, New York

Date: 1929, July 28

Father:

John "Jack" Vernou Bouvier, III, born 1891, May 19, East Hampton, New York, stock broker, New York Stock Exchange; died 1957, August 2, New York, New York

Mother:

Janet Norton Lee, born 1906, December 3, New York, New York; attended Sweetbriar College, Virginia, and Vassar College but did not graduate from either institution; a noted horsewoman and a multiple trophy winner. Janet Lee married John Bouvier, 1928, July 7, at St. Philomena's Church, East Hampton, New York; died, 1989, July 22, Newport, Rhode Island.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's parents divorced in 1942. Janet Bouvier married a second time on 1942, June 21, to Hugh D. Auchincloss (1897-1972). She married a third time on 1979, October 25, to Bingham Morris. Morris's first wife had been a bridesmaid in the wedding party of his second wife (Janet Lee Bouvier).

Ancestry:

Irish, English, French, Scottish; Jacqueline Kennedy was half-Irish, her mother being the granddaughter of four immigrants from County Cork, who came to New York during the 1840's potato famine. Jacqueline Kennedy's paternal grandmother Maude Sergeant was the daughter of an immigrant from Kent, England. Despite her maiden name, Jacqueline Kennedy's French ancestry was descent from one great-grandfather, making her only one-eight French. The first Bouvier to settle in America was carpenter Michel Bouvier, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1815 from Point Saint-Esprit in the Provence region. One source claims the legend of ancestral descent of the Bouviers to include a later descendant of the Van Salees family, Dutch/African merchants that settled in New Amsterdam in the 17th century.

Birth Order and Siblings:

Eldest of two, she had a younger sister, Caroline Lee Bouvier Canfield Radziwill Ross (born 1933, March 3).

Through the second marriage of her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy had two half-siblings, Janet Jennings Auchincloss (1945-1985) and James Lee Auchincloss (born 1947); by Hugh D. Auchincloss's first marriage to Maria Chrapovitsky, she had a step-brother, Hugh D. ("Yusha") Auchincloss, Jr. (born 1927?); by Hugh D. Auchincloss's second marriage to Nina Gore Vidal, she had a step-sister, Nina Auchincloss Steers Straight (born 1935?), and a step-brother Thomas Auchincloss (born 1937?).

Although the author, playwright and social critic Gore Vidal has often been identified as a stepbrother to Jacqueline Kennedy, they both shared the same stepfather, but through different mothers.

Physical Appearance:

5'8", brown hair, brown eyes

Religious Affiliation:

Roman Catholic; Although she married a second time to a divorced man in a ceremony of his Greek Orthodox faith, thus breaking her faith's tenets, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis did not convert and was buried with full rites of the Catholic Church.

Education:

Chapin School, 1935-1942, New York City (kindergarten and grammar school); Holton Arms School, 1942-1944, Washington, D.C. (completed grammar school and first year of high school); Miss Porter's School, 1944-1947, Farmington, Connecticut (high school); Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (freshman and sophomore years, college) 1947-1949; University of Grenoble and Sorbonne, Paris, France (junior year abroad program through Smith College), 1949-1950; George Washington University, Washington, D.C. (senior year, college), B.A. French literature, 1950-951; Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (American history continuing education classes), 1954

Occupation before Marriage:

At an early age, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote essays and poems which were sometimes published in local newspapers. In her high school newspaper Salmagundi, she penned a cartoon series and won the graduating award for literature. In 1951, she submitted an entry to Vogue magazine's Prix de Paris contest, the prize for which was to spend half a year in New York, and the other half in Paris as a junior editor for the magazine. The submission was rigorous, requiring an original theme for an entire issue, illustrations, articles, layout and design, an advertising campaign that could be tied into the issue's content. In the requisite essay, "People I Wish I Had Known," she listed playwright Oscar Wilde, poet Charles Baudelaire and ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev. Named one of the twelve finalists, she was then interviewed by the magazine editors and out of 1,280 entries she won the contest. Her mother, however, did not want her to leave the U.S. and made her turn down the prize. After college, she worked for the Washington Times-Herald as its Inquiring Camera Girl, earning $42.50 a week. Her job was to both photograph and interview local citizens with one question each day; her first interview was with Pat Nixon and others included Vice President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy whom she later married. The questions became increasingly political, including topics like the Soviet Union, the Korean War, and the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. One of her last assignments was to cover Queen Elizabeth's 1953 coronation.

Marriage:

First: 1953, September 12, to John F. Kennedy, born 1917, May 29, in Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States Senator (D-Massachusetts), former U.S. Congressman (D-Massachusetts), at St. Mary's Church, Newport, Rhode Island. John F. Kennedy died 1963, November 22, Dallas, Texas.

Second: 1968, October 20, to Aristotle Socrates Onassis, born 1906, June 15, in Smyrna, Turkey, international shipping magnate, airline owner, at Skorpios Island, Greece. He died 1975, March 15, The American Hospital, Paris, France. His first marriage

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