JACKIE BOUVIER PICTORIAL

I've been thinking about Jackie O lately.  Maybe it's because I've been noticing the fashion, attitude and lack of grace with today's mainstream.  There seems to be a lack of class with regards to young ladies today.  The flavor of the moment is to dress as scantily as possible.  Leaving nothing to the imagination is the new cool.  I feel a since of loss and a longing for the women that I grew up knowing.  My grandmother is to me the epitome of an era that seems loss to history.  She herself grew up in the time of miss social grace, style and preppy fashion herself, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born in Southampton, New York, to Wall Street stock broker John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee. Jacqueline had a younger sister, Caroline Lee (known as Lee), born in 1933. Her parents divorced in 1940 and her mother married Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. in 1942. Through Janet's second marriage, Jacqueline gained a half sister and a half brother, Janet and James Auchincloss.  Her mother's family, the Lees, were mostly of Irish descent, and her father, John Vernou Bouvier III, was descended from French and English people. Michel Bouvier, Jacqueline's great-great-grandfather, was born in France and was a contemporary of Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard. He was a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker, carpenter, merchant and real estate speculator.  Michel's wife, Louise Vernou was the daughter of John Vernou, a French emigre tobacconist and Elizabeth Clifford Lindsay, an American born woman. Jacqueline's grandfather, John Vernou Bouvier Jr., fashioned a more noble ancestry for his family in his vanity family history book Our Forebears. Recent scholarship and the research done by Jacqueline's cousin, John H. Davis, in his book The Bouviers: Portrait of an American Family, have disproved most of these fantasy lineages.

She spent her early years in New York City and East Hampton, New York at the Bouvier family estate, "Lasata".  Following their parents' divorce, Jacqueline and Lee divided their time between their mother's homes in McLean, Virginia and Newport, Rhode Island and their father's homes in New York City and Long Island. She attended the Chapin School in New York City.
At a very early age she became an enthusiastic equestrienne,[5] and horse-riding would remain a lifelong passion. As a child, she also enjoyed drawing, reading and lacrosse.
Bouvier pursued her secondary education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland (1942–1944) and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut (1944–1947).
When she made her society debut in 1947, Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her Debutante of the Year.
Bouvier spent her first two years of college at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and spent her junior year (1949–1950) in France at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in a program through Smith College.  Upon returning home to the United States, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1951 with a bachelor of arts degree in French literature.  Bouvier's college graduation coincided with her sister's high school graduation, and the two spent the summer of 1951 on a trip through Europe. This trip was the subject of Kennedy's only autobiographical book, One Special Summer, which is also the only one of her publications to feature her drawings.
Following her graduation, Bouvier was hired as the Inquiring Photographer for The Washington Times-Herald. The position required her to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures to be published alongside selected quotations from their responses in the newspaper.

Of course she is best known as the first lady to President Kennedy.  I don't want to bore you anymore.  Jackie is far more loved for her style and grace.  A grace displayed in the legendary way she handled the assassination of her husband John.

I want to now share a pictorial taken from the Kennedy Family Forums of our only royal princess.....Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, enjoy.

-Posted by O. Cavanaugh