Monday, July 15, 2024

Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss

 

the Upper East Side in New York City


Jackie Kennedy's mother's maiden name was Lee.  When she married "Black Jack," she added Bouvier to her name - after divorcing him, she married millionaire Hugh D. Auchincloss.

        Jackie and her sister Lee called their stepfather Uncle Hughdie, or "Unk."


----------------------------- [excerpts from Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony - 2023, Gallery Books] ----------------

Jackie Bouvier's primary memory of her parents prior to their 1936 separation was their heading out to a Central Park Casino dance.  "I'll never forget the night my mother and father came into my bedroom all dressed up to go out.  

        I can still smell the scent my mother wore and feel the softness of her fur coat as she leaned over to kiss me good night."  The "moment stayed with me because it was one of the few times I remember seeing my parents together.  It was so romantic.  So hopeful."


        When twenty-year-old Janet Lee married thirty-seven-year-old Jack Bouvier, she entered a family that lived far more extravagantly than her own.  Ironically, the Lees had greater wealth, all earned in one generation by her father, James Thomas Lee.


During Black Jack and Janet's trial separation, from October 1936 to April 1937, Black Jack moved into a suite at the Westbury Hotel, then moved back home for several months.  It was clear there would be no reconciliation, and the final separation came in autumn 1937, when, after briefly staying with his parents, he settled into his permanent apartment at 125 East 74th Street.


        As the girls consistently defended Daddy, Mummy's escalating resentment toward her children manifested through her "frequently yelling" and her "very quick and at times violent temper," according to the nanny, Bertha Kimmerle.

...Jackie frequently spoke about running away and going to her father's house.  The author Gore Vidal said Jackie's "life in the world had been a good deal harder than she ever let on."


...Throughout the two years of Jack and Janet's separation - 1938 to 1940 - and then the two years after the 1940 divorce, Jack was able to enjoy the company of his daughters on most weekends during the school year.... 

        However, two months after Janet's June 1942 remarriage to Unk, she and her daughters moved to Unk's Virginia home.  From September 1942 until June 1944, Jackie was unable to see her father much on weekends, and they had just six summer weeks together in East Hampton.  


Black Jack's brother-in-law John Davis noted how heavily Bouvier began drinking and how he raged against Janet and her new husband, whom he dubbed "Take-a-Loss-with-Auchincloss."


Jackie Bouvier with her mom and dad


-30-

No comments:

Post a Comment