Description:

Kennedy Jacqueline

Jacqueline Kennedy, 3pp ALS to her mother, Janet Norton Lee Bouvier Auchincloss, August 1955, Nice, France, 8.25" x 10.5", with stamped air mail envelope addressed to “Mrs H. D. Auchincloss / Hammersmith Farm / Newport / Rhode Island / USA”, 5.75" x 4". Letter in very good to near fine condition with expected paper folds, a few extra wrinkles, and light overall toning.

Less than two years after her marriage to John F. Kennedy, now U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Jacqueline Kennedy writes to her mother from Nice, France, where she waits with her sister and brother-in-law for her husband’s arrival. She hopes to give him “the most beautiful peaceful fall … away from politics & the gloomy Cape”.

Complete Transcript:

"Dearest Dearest Mummy,

How can I ever thank you enough for my heavenly birthday letter. you dont know how much it meant, or how much it made being far away from home feel like a birthday, & especially when I know the frenzy you are in now. it was so sweet of you to written it, & my fabulous check. I have bought the most beautiful thing with it for our new house—2 enormous black & gold tea caddies with green marbleized tops to be used as end tables—they are heaven. I discovered them this winter & I was longing for them all the time. who would ever have thought I would get them for a birthday present. Thank you so so much Mummy—you always have made occasions out of things birthdays easter etc. & you never realize how important that is until you are far away.

Your letters came in the evening, & that night, all dressed up in evening clothes to go to the Aldriches dinner for the Dillons, Lee & Michael produced a bottle of champagne & gave me this sweet drawing in a gold & satinwood frame. its ink & watercolor—a pink pavilion & a dreamy man in a pink coat on a horse standing in a brook nearby.

We left for Paris the next morning. Michael drove as there was room for no one in the car once we had the bags in. We stated at Solanges flat—she & Henri & child are all away--had drive with Cleveland Amory & wife the first nite & collapsed & ate oeuf durs by ourselves the 2nd. Then we flew to Nice Sat nite, got to the flat about 1 am, all the lights went out, but luckily Michael was already there & helped to get bags in. It is just a dream, tiny but a delicious terrace. we’ve only been here 2 days & today is rainy, but yesterday we lay in the boiling sun, got up at 7 30 to go to market & had tomatoes & paté & cheese & vin rosé on our terrace for lunch. Jacques Prevert the existentialist poet has the terrace below us & Michael said the afternoon he got there, guess who was having tea with Prevert—Picasso. Michael kept staring over the terrace & they smiled sickly at each other. We will start calling up people tomorrow. We were so lilly white we wanted to hide for a day. The last I heard from Jack a phone call the nite before we left London. He was still coming. I pray he is, because I have the most beautiful peaceful fall mapped out for him, away from politics & the gloomy Cape. if only he feels well enough to stay over here maybe he’ll get his strength back. I suppose I will miss Nini’s party. I cant believe it as it never occurred to me that I would. it seems so far away & I was sure I wouldnt come over & I’d go back, then your letter brought me to my senses with a jolt. I am really miserable about that. I know it will be a dream evening, & worth all the furor before. how could it help but be at Hammersmith, & with the people who will be there for ? week & the trouble you’ve taken. Lee & I will dance a sad little waltz together at midnight in some fisherman’s café Aug 12 & drink a toast to Nim--& you!

So many many thanks again Mummy for all my lovely birthday & so many thanks & love to Uncle Hugh too. I will write again soon

XXX

Jackie".

In February 1955, John F. Kennedy underwent a second back operation, during which he almost died. By August 1955, John F. Kennedy had plans other than joining his wife in southern France. He managed a secret rendezvous for a week in a Swedish castle with Gunilla von Post, a young woman fifteen years his junior. His father quashed the affair and any attempts to end his marriage with Jackie, out of both political ambition and sensitivity to Jackie’s miscarriage in 1955 and pregnancy in 1956. Von Post married a wealthy Swedish landowner in 1956.

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994) was born in New York to a stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee, and raised as a Catholic. She attended Vassar College, spent a year in France, and transferred to George Washington University, from which she graduated in 1951 with a degree in French literature. She met Congressman John F. Kennedy in 1952 at a dinner party, and they married in September 1953. She suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn daughter in August 1956. She later gave birth to three children by John F. Kennedy, but the third lived only two days. As First Lady of the United States, she restored the White House. By her husband’s side when he was assassinated in Dallas, Jacqueline Kennedy spent the next year in mourning. After the assassination of her brother-in-law in June 1968, married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in October 1968. He died in 1975, and she returned to the United States.

Janet Norton Lee Bouvier Auchincloss (1907-1989) was born in New York City. She attended Sweet Briar and Barnard Colleges and was an equestrian champion. In 1928 she married John Vernou Bouvier III, and they had two daughters, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and Caroline Lee Bouvier. Janet and John Bouvier divorced in 1940, and in 1942, she married attorney and Standard Oil heir Hugh Dudley Auchincloss Jr., with whom she had two children. After he died in 1976, she married a third time in 1979, to Bingham Willing Morris. Although they separated in 1981, she and Morris remained married until her death.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 1940. He joined the United States Naval Reserve in 1941, and became the commander of a patrol torpedo boat in the South Pacific until 1945, when he was discharged. Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and then in the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1960, when he was elected as the 35th President of the United States at age 43.

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