Kennedy Marriage and Family
Jacqueline Bouvier and then-U.S. Representative John Kennedy belonged to the same social circle and often attended the same functions. They were formally introduced by a mutual friend journalist Charles L. Bartlett, at a dinner party in May 1952. Kennedy was then busy running for the US Senate but after his election in November, the relationship grew more serious and led to their engagement, officially announced on June 25, 1953.
They were married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in a Mass celebrated by Boston's Archbishop Richard Cushing. The wedding was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 700 guests at the ceremony and 1,200 at the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.
The wedding cake was created by Plourde's Bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts. The wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City.
The newlyweds honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico, before settling in their new home Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia. Behind the glamour, however, the couple had to face several personal setbacks. John Kennedy had some serious health issues then unknown to the public. He suffered from Addison's Disease and from chronic and at times debilitating back pain due to a war injury. During the fall and winter of 1954, he underwent two delicate spinal operations which almost proved fatal. Jacqueline Kennedy suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 1956.
The couple ended up selling their estate Hickory Hill, to Robert Kennedy and his wife Ethel and their growing family, and bought a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. Jacqueline Kennedy subsequently gave birth to a second daughter, Caroline, in 1957, and a son, John, in 1960, both via Caesarian section. A second son, Patrick, was born prematurely in an emergency caesarean section on August 7, 1963, and died two days later.
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabella Kennedy | August 23, 1956 | August 23, 1956 | Stillborn daughter. |
| Caroline Bouvier Kennedy | November 27, 1957 | Married to Edwin Schlossberg; has two daughters and a son. She is the last surviving child of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy. | |
| John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. | November 25, 1960 | July 16, 1999 | Magazine publisher and lawyer. Married to Carolyn Bessette. Both Kennedy and his wife died in a plane crash, as did Lauren Bessette, Carolyn's sister, on July 16, 1999, off Martha's Vineyard in a Piper Saratoga II HP piloted by Kennedy. |
| Patrick Bouvier Kennedy | August 7, 1963 | August 9, 1963 | Died from hyaline membrane disease, today more commonly called infant respiratory distress syndrome. |
Read more about this topic: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Famous quotes containing the words kennedy, marriage and/or family:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs, 29:18.
President John F. Kennedy quoted this passage on the eve of his assassination in Dallas, Texas; recorded in Theodore C. Sorenson’s biography, Kennedy, Epilogue (1965)
“the mother lies down on her marriage bed
and eats up her heart like two eggs.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)