A great lady of any Century...

          

   Jackie

There is so much one could say about this wonderful lady - and "lady" she always was, in the fullest, old-fashioned sense of the word.

She was well-bred, educated, sophisticated, cultured, talented, strong, intelligent and very, very elegant - the list could go on...

She was a marvelous role model for women everywhere and of every age.  In my daughter's words "What a neat lady!".

It's not my intention to write a biography - instead I will mention only a few of the many things she did - the things that have made her so special for me. 

She was a wonderful mother.  She  raised two children of whom any parent would be proud - no mean feat considering the exceptional circumstances!

She once said "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."

 Jack and Jackie

She also said "There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world.  Love of books is the best of all."  Wise words from a woman whose own love of the written word saw her spend her final years of life as a successful editor!
    The First Lady

She knew the importance of History and Heritage!

During her three years as First Lady  she established the White House Historical Association and, with the goal of restoring the state rooms of the White House to reflect the illustrious history of the presidential mansion she established, within a month of becoming first lady, a White House Fine Arts Committee made up of experts in historic preservation and decorative arts.

Her efforts made the White House "the most perfect house in the United States".

Considering the generation to which she was born it could be said that she was "ahead of her time" with her views of the place of women in society. Her brand of low-key feminism held more appeal for me than the strident "man haters" of later years.

"What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren't supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown - watch the raindrops coming down the window pane?"  she once said.

 Jack and Jackie

"When Harvard men say they have graduated from Radcliffe, then we've made it."

  

To thine own self be true.   It seems to me she always sought to live by that rule...

Within the self-imposed constraints of impeccable taste and good manners this lady always seemed to manage to "do her own thing".  She was quoted as saying "I want to live my life, not record it." 

And live it she did, with grace and style and courage.  "I won't barter myself." 

I  marveled at her courage and dignity in the hours and days following the assassination. 

 I saw her questing for the necessary privacy in which to raise her children in her marriage to Onassis.

I watched her embark on a successful career as an editor once the important task of raising her children was completed.

I saw her mature so gracefully. She was as beautiful and elegant as an older women as she was in the halcyon days of the White House.

And I saw her die, as she had lived, with courage and honour and dignity and grace...

 She aged with grace...

I mourn her passing - the world is diminished by her absence.

 

Apart from those included in the text above a few other Jackie quotes include:

                

  • "Even though people may be well known, they hold in their hearts the emotions of a simple person for the moments that are the most important of those we know on earth: birth, marriage and death."

  • "A newspaper reported that I spent $30,000 a year buying Paris clothes and that women hate me for it. I couldn't spend that much unless I wore sable underwear."

  • "Whenever I was upset by something in the papers, Jack always told me to be more tolerant, like a horse flicking away flies in the summer."

  • "I want minimum information given with maximum politeness."

  • "I always wanted to be some kind of writer or newspaper reporter. But after college ... I did other things." 

  • "The only routine with me is no routine at all."

  • "I have been through life and suffered a great deal, but I have had happy moments, as well. Every moment one lives is different from the other. The good, the bad, hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness are all interwoven into one single, indescribable whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good and the bad, and perhaps there is no need to do so."

  • "The one thing I do not want to be called is First Lady. It sounds like a saddle horse."

There are a great many web sites with information about this wonderful lady, but several that are filled with information about her life, her death and her many accomplishments are: