Jackie Kennedy Biography Quotes 31 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York. She was the elder daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III, a Wall Street stockbroker, and Janet Norton Lee. Known to family and friends as Jackie, she grew up between New York City, East Hampton, and Newport, where the sea air and equestrian culture suited her athleticism and love of the arts. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother later married Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr., bringing Jackie into a wider family that included time at Merrywood in Virginia and Hammersmith Farm in Newport. Jackie had one sister, Caroline Lee Bouvier, known as Lee Radziwill, with whom she maintained a close, if at times complex, lifelong bond. From an early age, Jackie showed a refined eye for literature and aesthetics, and a fierce discipline that would carry into her public life.

Education and Early Career
Educated at the Chapin School in New York and Miss Porter's School in Connecticut, Jackie cultivated both intellectual and social graces. She attended Vassar College and spent an influential period studying in France, becoming fluent in French and developing a deep attachment to European culture. After returning to the United States, she completed her degree at George Washington University in 1951. In Washington, she joined the Washington Times-Herald as the inquisitive and poised Inquiring Photographer, interviewing people on the street about current affairs. The role sharpened her political instincts and comfort with the press while preserving her independence and low-key humor. Her appetite for art, history, and language deepened, and she began to form friendships in journalism and politics that would shape the course of her life.

Marriage to John F. Kennedy
Jackie met Congressman and future senator John F. Kennedy through friends in Washington society and journalism, including Charles Bartlett. The two married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, with a reception at Hammersmith Farm. The marriage bound Jackie to a family steeped in public service, including Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, and it placed her at the heart of national political life. Despite her husband's demanding schedule and recurring health problems, Jackie supported his Senate work and the 1960 presidential campaign with a quiet but effective touch. She communicated in multiple languages, drew on her understanding of history, and used television and print to humanize the candidate. The couple endured profound personal loss with a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillborn daughter in 1956, followed by the joy of Caroline's birth in 1957 and John F. Kennedy Jr.'s in 1960. Their infant son Patrick, born in 1963, died after two days, a grief that deepened her empathy and resolve.

First Lady of the United States
As First Lady from 1961 to 1963, Jackie Kennedy reshaped the cultural meaning of the White House. Determined that the executive residence reflect the nation's history, she assembled a Fine Arts Committee and enlisted experts such as Henry Francis du Pont, Sister Parish, and Stephane Boudin to guide a scholarly restoration. She founded the White House Historical Association and launched an authoritative guidebook so that visitors could understand the provenance of rooms and collections. In February 1962, she hosted a televised White House tour that captivated millions and earned her a special Emmy Award, an unusual honor for a First Lady.

Jackie's instinct for cultural diplomacy complemented the Kennedy administration's global agenda. On the 1961 trip to France, her fluent French and knowledge of the arts charmed President Charles de Gaulle and the French public. She later visited India and Pakistan, where meetings with Jawaharlal Nehru and an attentive public underscored her ability to connect across cultures. At the White House, she supported performances and exhibitions, including a notable concert by cellist Pablo Casals. Social secretary Letitia Baldrige helped translate Jackie's vision into events that balanced elegance with a sense of national heritage. Fashion designer Oleg Cassini crafted much of her distinctive wardrobe, which, while widely admired, always served larger goals of poise, clarity, and symbolism.

Assassination and National Mourning
On November 22, 1963, Jackie accompanied President Kennedy in a motorcade through Dallas alongside Texas Governor John Connally and Nellie Connally. After the fatal shots, she remained at her husband's side, and later stood beside Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One as Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of office to the new president. Back in Washington, Jackie oversaw funeral arrangements that echoed Abraham Lincoln's rites, with a riderless horse and a procession that brought world leaders together, among them de Gaulle and many others. She worked closely with Robert F. Kennedy and government officials to stage a ceremony that lifted private sorrow into public ritual. In a conversation with journalist Theodore H. White for Life magazine, she invoked the idea of Camelot, giving Americans a language for the lost promise of the Kennedy years.

Widowhood and Preservation
Following the funeral, Jackie focused on protecting Caroline and John, and she increasingly sought privacy. Even as she withdrew from constant public scrutiny, she remained committed to civic projects. She became a driving force behind the creation of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, ultimately selecting architect I. M. Pei and supporting a design that balanced modernism with memory. Her advocacy extended to urban preservation, where she joined the Municipal Art Society and helped rally public opinion to save New York's Grand Central Terminal. Her presence at hearings and campaigns signaled that preservation was not nostalgia but public stewardship.

Marriage to Aristotle Onassis
In 1968, Jackie married Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate, on Skorpios. The marriage, occurring in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, provided a measure of security and privacy during a period of extraordinary strain. The global press followed the couple intensively, yet she continued to define a private sphere for her children and to sustain friendships with figures in diplomacy, the arts, and journalism. After Onassis's death in 1975, she returned full-time to New York, retaining the name Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her professional and public life.

Editorial Career and Public Life
In New York, she built a substantive career in publishing, first at Viking Press and then at Doubleday, where she worked from the late 1970s until 1994. As an editor, she championed projects in history, architecture, photography, children's literature, and memoir, often favoring works that illuminated culture and place. Colleagues described her as meticulous and encouraging, a professional who let authors shine while quietly shaping manuscripts. She supported museums, libraries, and preservation organizations, and remained involved with the Kennedy Library alongside family members such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Though protective of her privacy, she occasionally appeared at events in support of the arts, education, and urban renewal, offering her name and time to causes she believed could measurably improve public life.

Later Years and Death
Jackie balanced her editorial work with family life, attending milestones for Caroline and John and nurturing a close circle of friends that included former White House colleagues and cultural figures. A familiar presence in Central Park, she valued the city's public spaces; the Central Park Reservoir would later be named in her honor. In the early 1990s she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She died at her home in New York City on May 19, 1994, at the age of 64. Her funeral was held at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan, with attendance that spanned politics and the arts, including President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beside President Kennedy and their two lost children, near the Eternal Flame she had lit in 1963.

Legacy
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis left an imprint that reached far beyond style. She professionalized the role of First Lady as a guardian of national heritage and a partner in cultural diplomacy. She elevated the White House as a museum of American history, broadened the nation's artistic conversation, and demonstrated how ritual and symbolism can guide a country through grief. Her editorial career affirmed the value she placed on ideas and craft, and her preservation work helped anchor landmark protection in the nation's conscience. Through public trials and private sorrows, she approached life with discipline, wit, and dignity. The myth of Camelot persists, but so does the tangible legacy of buildings saved, institutions strengthened, and a standard of cultural stewardship that continues to influence how First Ladies, public servants, and citizens imagine their obligations to the past and the future.

Our collection contains 31 quotes who is written by Jackie, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Mother - Live in the Moment - Parenting - Art.

• Was Jackie with Onassis when he died? No, Jackie was not with Aristotle Onassis when he died; they were separated at the time.
• What was Jackie Kennedy last words? Her last words are not publicly known.
• How did Jackie Kennedy die? Jackie Kennedy died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer.
• How old was Jackie Kennedy? She became 64 years old

• Wikipedia