Janet Lee Bouvier

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Janet Norton Lee Bouvier Auchincloss Morris (December 3, 1907—July 22, 1989) was the mother of United States First Lady Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis; she often stood in for her daughter as hostess for official White House functions, although as a socially conscious woman, she often felt that her daughter Jackie married beneath herself (i.e. into the Kennedy family).

She was born Janet Norton Lee, the daughter of James Thomas Lee (October 2, 1877—January 3, 1968) and Margaret A. Merritt (1878—February 26, 1943), and she studied at Sweet Briar College, and later at Vassar, but did not graduate from either institution. Her paternal grandfather, Dr. James Lee, was a superintendent of New York City public schools, though Janet Lee Bouvier liked to tell people he was a Maryland-born veteran of the United States Civil War. Janet Norton Lee had sisters: Winifred Norton Lee (Mrs. Franklin d'Olier) and Marion Norton Lee (Mrs. John J. Ryan Jr.). [1]

She married three times. Her first husband was John Vernou Bouvier III, also known as Black Jack for his dramatically swarthy coloring. They were married on July 7, 1928 and had two daughters: Jacqueline Lee (July 28, 1929–May 19, 1994) and Caroline Lee Radziwill (born March 3, 1933). Black Jack Bouvier's womanizing and drinking led to a separation in 1936, a brief reconciliation for a few months in 1937, and then a divorce in 1940.

Janet's second husband was Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., an attorney and Standard Oil heir; she was his third wife. They were married on June 21, 1942 and had two children: Janet Jennings Auchincloss Rutherfurd, who briefly dated John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, while she was a student at Miss Porter's; and James Lee Auchincloss, born in 1947.

Her third marriage, after Auchincloss' death, was to Bingham "Booch" Morris on October 25, 1979. Though they separated in 1981, the marriage lasted until her death eight years later.

She died of complications arising from Alzheimer's disease. [2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "A Novel Of Complex Family Ties Sets Off Guessing", New York Times, April 17, 1981. Retrieved on 2007-06-21. "Nina Gore Auchincloss Steers Straight's memories of her half-brother, Gore Vidal, though fragmented, are vivid. A photograph of me as a teeny baby, a fat thing sitting on Gore's lap. Then I never saw him again until I was 13 or 14, a bad speller, a bad grammarian, and he started me reading. I remember him shaking his finger and telling me, Now I want you to read Virginia Woolf and Thomas Hardy." 
  2. ^ "Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris, 81", New York Times, July 24, 1989. Retrieved on 2008-04-05. "Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris, a leading member of society in Newport, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., and the mother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill Ross, died Saturday after a long illness at her home on Hammersmith Farm in Newport. She was 81 years old and also had a home in Washington." 

[edit] Further reading

  • Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, by Jan Pottke.
  • Obituary of James Thomas Lee On January 4th of 1968 by New York Times.