Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

Early Life and Marriage

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York, the elder daughter of stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Lee Bouvier. Educated at Miss Porter's School and Vassar College, she spent her junior year in Paris before completing her degree in French literature at George Washington University in 1951. She then worked as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald, a job that put her in the path of the young congressman-turned-senator John F. Kennedy.

The couple married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in what the press treated as the social event of the year. Their early marriage was marked by loss: a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillborn daughter, Arabella, in 1956. Caroline was born in 1957 and John Jr. in November 1960, weeks after the presidential election.

First Lady

At 31, Jacqueline Kennedy became one of the youngest First Ladies in American history and quickly one of the most influential. She led a scholarly restoration of the White House, established the White House Historical Association, and in February 1962 guided the nation through the results in a televised tour watched by tens of millions. Her fluency in French and Spanish, her patronage of the arts, and her much-imitated style made her a diplomatic asset in her own right; on a 1961 state visit the President famously introduced himself as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris."

The couple's fourth child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died two days after his premature birth in August 1963. Three months later, on November 22, 1963, she was beside her husband in the motorcade in Dallas when he was assassinated. Her composure over the following days, and her deliberate shaping of the funeral on the model of Lincoln's, fixed the image of the Kennedy presidency as "Camelot" in the public mind.

Later Life

In October 1968, four months after Robert Kennedy's assassination, she married the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, a decision that cost her some public sympathy but that she later explained as a search for safety for her children. After Onassis died in 1975 she returned to New York and built a second career as a book editor, first at Viking Press and then, for nearly two decades, at Doubleday. She raised Caroline and John Jr. largely out of the spotlight and became a leading voice in historic preservation, most visibly in the campaign that saved Grand Central Terminal.

She died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on May 19, 1994, at her Fifth Avenue apartment, aged 64, and was buried beside President Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery, next to the two children they had lost.

Who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis married to?

Jacqueline Bouvier married John F. Kennedy in 1953 and was First Lady from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. In 1968 she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who died in 1975.

How many children did Jackie Kennedy have?

She had four children with John F. Kennedy: Arabella (stillborn, 1956), Caroline (born 1957), John Jr. (1960–1999) and Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, who died two days after his birth in 1963.

How did Jackie Kennedy die?

She died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on May 19, 1994, in New York City at the age of 64. She is buried at Arlington National Cemetery beside President Kennedy.