On September 12, 1953, 700 guests gathered at St. Mary’s Church to watch a 24-year-old journalist marry a newly elected senator from Massachusetts.
The young couple pledged fidelity to each other before God, unaware that their marriage would last only ten years. The early joys of courtship would soon give way to responsibilities, health crises, and difficult decisions.
Through it all, Jacqueline, known as Jackie since childhood, stood by her husband’s side. She would gradually become an icon of American history.
Born in July 1929 in Hampton, New York, Jackie had a relatively peaceful childhood. Her upper-class family split time between Manhattan and a luxurious country estate. After spending a year in France during her university studies, she decided to pursue journalism.
She worked at the Washington Times-Herald after college. It was during this time, at one of the many parties she attended, that a mutual friend introduced her to John Kennedy. They married after just one year of dating.
Their honeymoon in Mexico was followed by a move to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Married life could begin. But from the start, the couple faced serious challenges.
John suffered from severe back pain caused by injuries sustained during World War II. When he decided to undergo surgery in 1954, the procedure nearly killed him. The situation grew worse when Jackie suffered a miscarriage and later gave birth to a stillborn daughter.
It was not until 1957 that fortune finally smiled on them. Jackie gave birth to a healthy daughter, Caroline, and John began campaigning for reelection to the Senate.
Something interesting emerged during this time. Whenever his beautiful and always elegant wife accompanied him, voter donations and media interest increased significantly. When Kennedy ran for office again in 1958, he made it clear that his wife’s influence on the campaign was invaluable.
Looking at images of Jackie smiling for cameras alongside her husband, one might think she was outgoing. But she was actually quite introverted. Given the choice, she would have preferred spending time with a book. Still, she embraced the role that circumstances gave her.
In 1960, John Kennedy decided to run for the highest office in the land. The race against Richard Nixon was extremely close. Jackie was in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy and could not campaign as actively as her husband would have liked.
It worked out in the end. At 43 years old, John Kennedy became the second youngest president in American history.
The rise of a young, handsome president was seen by most of the United States as the beginning of a new era, more open than the Cold War years of the 1950s. Jackie, who gave birth to their second child, John Fitzgerald Junior, just 17 days after the election, was an integral part of that new image.
Women across the country already admired her style. Now she became a celebrity of Hollywood proportions. Store windows filled with cheap copies of her luxurious outfits. Women everywhere begged their hairdressers for the same hairstyle.
But Jackie did not want to be merely a beautiful figurehead for the president’s image. She had her own plans. She set out to revive the spirit of an earlier time in the White House and embarked on a major restoration project.
In February 1962, CBS aired a television program about her work. An impressive 56 million viewers watched. Jackie even won an Emmy, the television equivalent of the Oscar.
Jackie did not only captivate America. She charmed foreign audiences during official visits with her husband. She spoke Spanish and Italian with local politicians. The French, in particular, adored her. President de Gaulle declared that she had changed his mind about Kennedy.
But not everything was perfect. Rumors circulated behind the scenes that the president occasionally cheated on his wife. One alleged lover was the famous actress Marilyn Monroe. Speculation grew when Monroe wore a seductive dress to celebrate Kennedy’s 45th birthday and sang to him in a manner considered very sensual for the time.
Jackie never said a bad word about her husband in public. She seemed to understand that whoever he might see in secret, he always returned to her and their children.
In October 1962, the United States stood on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. During the 13 long days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world held its breath. Tragedy was avoided at the last minute.
Jackie became pregnant again. But the baby, named Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died in August 1963, just two days after birth. It was too much even for her. She fell into a deep depression.
When a friend, the Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis, offered her a stay on his yacht to recover, President Kennedy agreed. Jackie returned to Washington in mid-October. She had no idea her husband had only a month left to live.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. It happened while the motorcade passed through the city. The Kennedys sat in the open car, enjoying the crowd that had come to see them on that sunny day.
The first bullet struck the president in the neck. The second tore off part of his head. Jackie, in her now iconic pink Chanel suit, moved toward the back of the car, perhaps trying to retrieve a piece of his skull. A Secret Service agent pushed her back into her seat.
Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, but his injuries were incompatible with life. Hours later, Vice President Johnson took the presidential oath aboard Air Force One. Jackie stood beside him, still wearing the bloodstained pink dress. She later explained that she wanted everyone to see what the assassins had done.
The final farewell took place just three days after the murder. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets as the funeral procession made its way forward. The image of Jackie with her two small children still brings sadness to those who see it today.
Five years later, Jackie married again. Her second husband was Aristotle Onassis, the fabulously wealthy Greek. He died six years after their wedding.
Jackie herself lived until the age of 94, when she succumbed to a malignant disease of the white blood cells. But the days when she stood at the height of success, fame, and family happiness never returned.
Those shots fired in Dallas in 1963 did not only take from America its president. They took a father and husband from a young family. They also ended the era of one of the most iconic couples in history, a couple that gave the United States new hope and captivated the world.