Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born as Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on July 28, 1929 in Southampton, New York. She married John F. Kennedy the 35th President of the United States in 1953. When she became first lady in 1961, she worked to restore to the White House. After JFK's assassination in 1963, she moved to New York City. Five years after JFK's death, Jackie shocked the nation by marring Aristotle Onassis at the age of 40. She died on May 19, 1994 of cancer called Lymphoma. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born on July 28, 1929 in Southampton, New York. She was raised by her two parents John Bouvier, her father, and Janet, her mother. Bouvier was a bright, curios, and occasionally mischievous child. One of her elementary teacher described her as "a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of devil meaning Jackie always makes mischief." Another teacher, less charmed by young Jacqueline, wrote "her disturbing conduct in geography class made it necessary to exclude her from the room." As a young child, Bouvier enjoyed the privileges of having ballet lessons at the Metropolitan Opera House and French lessons at the age 12. Like her mother, Onassis loved riding and was highly skilled on horseback riding. In 1940, at the age of 11, she won a national junior horsemanship competition. The New York Times (a New York Newspaper) reported, "Jacqueline Bouvier, and eleven-year-old equestrienne from East Hampton, Long Island, scored a double victory in the horsemanship competition. Miss Bouvier achieved a rare distinction. The occasions are few when the same riders win both competitions in the same show. Onassis attended Miss Porter's School, a prestigious boarding school in Farmington, Connecticut. At Miss Porter's school she grew as a student. The school also emphasized her proper manners and the art of conversation. During Miss Porter's School Onassis wrote frequent essays and poems for the school newspaper. She also won the award as the school's top literature student in her senior year. Another important award Onassis got during the senior year was. . . "Debutante of the Year" by a local newspaper. However, Onassis got greater compliments than being recognized for her beauty and popularity. She wrote in the yearbook beside her picture that her life was "not meant to be a housewife." When she graduating from Miss Porter's School Onassis enrolled at Vassar University in New York to study history, literature, art and French. Onassis spent her junior year studying aboard in Paris. Onassis later wrote that she loved it more than any year in her life, about her time she spend there. After returning from Paris, Onassis transferred to George Washington University in Washington D.C. She graduated with a B.A. in French literature in 1951. After graduating from George Washington University in 1951, Onassis got a job as a "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald newspaper. Her job was to photograph all sort of Washington residents. Then the Washington Times-Herald weaves her pictures and responses together in Onassis column. Among Onassis great stories were an interview with President Richard M. Nixon; Onassis got coverage of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration. It was at a dinner party where Jackie O. meant a young dashing congressman named John F. Kennedy. JFK “leaned across the asparagus and asked for a date.”They married a year later on September 12, 1953. Onassis soon gave birth to their first child, Caroline Kennedy in 1957. In January of 1960 JFK announced his candidacy for the US Presidency. Although Onassis was pregnant at that time with their second child causing her to be unable to join him on the campaign trail but she campaign tirelessly at home. She answered letters, gave interviews, taped commercials, and wrote a weekly column called “Campaign Wife.” On November 8, 1960, Kennedy defeated Richard M. Nixon to become the 35th President of the United States. Less than three weeks later, Onassis gave birth to their second child, John F. Kennedy Jr. Onassis’s first mission as First Lady was to refashion the White House into a museum of American history and culture that would inspire the tourists who visit the White House. Onassis went to extraordinary lengths to examine all the furniture in the White House owned by the past Presidents-including artifacts owned by George Washington, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln-as well as pieces of various periods of American culture. "everything in the White House must have a reason being there," she insisted. Jackie O. would hate to use the word redecorate. Jackie also did not liked to be called First Lady. On February 14, 1962, Onassis gave a tour of the restored White House on national television. As a result, 56 million views watched the tour and Onassis won an honorary Emmy Award for her performance. Onassis would frequently traveled aboard both with the president and alone. Her deep knowledge of foreign cultures and languages helped garner goodwill to America. She spoke fluent French, Spanish, and Italian. President Kennedy introduced himself as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris" in France. It was November 22, 1963 at 12:30 (central time) when Jackie O. was ridding alongside the president in a Lincoln Continental convertible car before the cheering crowds in Dallas, Texas. When all of a sudden Lee Harvey Oswald came in shooting with the Sniper Style Assassination. Right at that moment two things happened between JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy became dead his blood scattered all over Jacqueline Kennedy's pink suit and Jacqueline Kennedy became a widow for the first time. Luckily, only two were injured and only President Kennedy died. After JFK's assassination, she moved to New York City and in 1968, five years after JFK's death, Jackie shocked the nation by marring Greek shipping magnate named Aristotle Onassis at the age of 40. However, he died seven years later, in 1975; making Onassis a widow for the second time. Her second husband's death let her have the chance to go back as an editor for the Viking Press in New York City. In January 1994, Onassis contact with a type of cancer called Lymphoma. Her diagnosis was announced to the public the following month. She immediately stopped smoking of her daughter, previously being a three-pack-a-day smoker. The cancer proved to be aggressive and by April it has spread. She made her last trip home from New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center on Wednesday, May 18, 1994. Countless people and reporters gather on the street outside the apartment hoping she would recover. The following night at 10:15 Onassis died in her sleeping. It was Thursday, May 19, 1994, two and a half months before her 65th birthday. Her son, John F. Kennedy Jr., announced her death with the following quote:"My mother died surrounded by her friends, family and her books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that." Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the widow of President John F. Kennedy and of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, died of a form of cancer of the lymphatic system yesterday at her apartment in New York City. She was 64 years old. Mrs. Onassis, who had enjoyed robust good health nearly all her life, began being treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in early January and had been undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments in recent months while continuing her work as a book editor and her social, family and other personal routines. But the disease, which attacks the lymph nodes, an important component of the body's immune system, grew progressively worse. Mrs. Onassis entered the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for the last time on Monday but returned to her Fifth Avenue apartment on Wednesday after her doctors said there was no more they could do. In recent years Mrs. Onassis had lived quietly but not in seclusion, working at Doubleday; joining efforts to preserve historic New York buildings; spending time with her son, daughter and grandchildren; jogging in Central Park; getting away to her estates in New Jersey, at Hyannis, Mass., and on Martha's Vineyard, and going about town with Maurice Tempelsman, a financier who had become her closest companion. She almost never granted interviews on her past -- the last was nearly 30 years ago -- and for decades she had not spoken publicly about Mr. Kennedy, his Presidency or their marriage. Mrs. Onassis was surrounded by friends and family since she returned home from the hospital on Wednesday. After she died at 10:15 P.M. on Thursday, Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office issued a statement saying: "Jackie was part of our family and part of our hearts for 40 wonderful and unforgettable years, and she will never really leave us." Kennedy-Onassis' funeral was held on May 23, 1994 at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church in Manhattan, the church where she was baptized in 1929 and was confirmed as a teenager. At her funeral, her son John F. Kennedy Jr. described three of her attributes as the love of words, the bonds of home and family, and the spirit of adventure. She was buried alongside President John F. Kennedy, their son Patrick and their stillborn daughter Arabella at Arlington Nation Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.