Hushed affairs, tragic losses, and a surprising love that lasted to the end.
The marriage of John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie was always a spectacle.
Keep watching to find out just how much you didn't know about the presidential pair!
"Have you opened all your wedding gifts?" "Oh,
well, I've opened quite a few of them, and I've sent them all to Washington."
When John F. Kennedy met Jackie — then "Jacqueline Lee Bouvier " — in the spring of 1952,
not long before their September 1953 wedding, he had already been through several romantic
relationships, per Time. Something that most people don't know, however,
is that John F. Kennedy had apparently been married once before — to a woman by
the name of Durie Malcolm, per documents on file with the University of Illinois.
Durie Malcolm was a Palm Beach socialite who had dated JFK's older brother, Joe, for some
period of time. At some point, JFK himself had taken Malcolm out on a date, according to a 1961
memorandum-to-file that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote for record-keeping purposes — per
The Smoking Gun. The memorandum states that Hoover alerted JFK's brother, Attorney General
Robert Kennedy, to the fact that various sources claimed JFK had married Malcolm. According to AOL,
it was rumored that JFK and Malcolm had eloped before a justice of the peace in 1947.
From the University of Illinois documentation,
it would appear that the Kennedy/Malcolm marriage really happened. But according
to author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh,
the Kennedy family used its formidable influence to have the marriage annulled.
According to the Irish Times, in a 1952 letter, Jackie wrote to her friend Father Joseph Leonard:
"I know I will marry this boy. I don't have to think and wonder."
Indeed, The New York Times announced Jackie's engagement to this particular
"boy." Nevertheless, by March, it was all over.
That boy was not John F. Kennedy — he was John G. Husted Jr., a stockbroker.
As it turns out, the trouble with Husted was that in 1952, he wasn't making enough money
to sustain the lifestyle to which Jackie had long been accustomed, per People. That's what
Jackie's mother, Janet Auchincloss, informed her daughter when she learned that Husted's
annual take-home pay was a mere $17,000, which was the equivalent of roughly $187,500 in 2022.
Janet Auchincloss — who married an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, Hugh Auchincloss,
two years after her divorce from Jackie's stockbroker father, "Black Jack" Bouvier — seemed
to be a firm believer that money and power were the key ingredients for any successful marriage.
Janet worked hard to instill the same values in her daughters. Apparently,
her efforts paid off, because following a discussion with her mother, Jackie quickly
called off the engagement by slipping the ring back into Husted's jacket pocket.
"Well, now, which requires the most diplomacy:
to interview senators or to be married to one?" "Well — " "Being married to one, I bet."
Jackie Kennedy made it her business to nurture JFK's reputation and defend him from attack,
per Vanity Fair. According to the JFK Library, Jackie's protectiveness may have comprised her
single most significant contribution to JFK's presidency — and to history itself. First, JFK
had myriad health issues starting in childhood, and Jackie took it upon herself to act as his
health advocate and custodian of his privacy, per The Atlantic. And when it came to her husband's
many alleged infidelities, she was a model of stoic discretion, per People. But it was only
after JFK's assassination that Jackie did her most notable work when it came to his legacy.
In the wake of her husband's death, Jackie had her pick of esteemed biographers to begin crafting
said legacy, but she chose a relative unknown who she believed would be willing to allow her
to control the narrative, via Vanity Fair. Moreover, because Jackie wanted no one to
forget that John had once been a war hero, she made sure his funeral procession was
reminiscent of the one held for President Abraham Lincoln, per The Washington Post.
Despite epitomizing the picture of a happy, wholesome marriage, Jackie and John F. Kennedy
struggled with infertility. After the couple's first pregnancy ended in miscarriage in 1955,
Jackie was given the devastating news that, quote, "carrying and delivering a
child would always be difficult for her," per HuffPost. The admonition proved to be true,
with their next pregnancy ending in a stillbirth after eight months.
On August 23, 1956, one month before Jackie was due to give birth to the couple's first child,
John was cavorting with friends — both male and female — on a Mediterranean cruise
when Jackie began to hemorrhage. Soon after, she delivered a stillborn baby girl via C-section.
It is believed that the Kennedys declined to name the baby, whose grave marker notes only
the word "Daughter" and the date, per the National First Ladies' Library. However,
it is widely believed that Jackie referred to her first-born baby as Arabella.
After a miscarriage and a stillbirth in 1955 and 1956, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Kennedy went
on to have two healthy children, per HuffPost. Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born on November 27,
1957. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. was born almost three years to the day later
on November 25, 1960. The newly elected first family moved into the White House soon after,
and they had a third child, born August 7, 1963, during JFK's presidency.
Tragically, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, who was born 5 ½ weeks premature, died two days later
of hyaline membrane disease, per HuffPost. Although Patrick's death was, arguably,
one of the most devastating moments the Kennedys had to face during their marriage,
it also appeared to cement their bond.
Per The Salt Lake Tribune, one of their Secret Service agents observed in his memoir:
"Prior to this, they were ... less willing to express their close, loving relationship while
out in public. The loss of Patrick seemed to be the catalyst to change all that."
Patrick Kennedy's death on August 7, 1963, struck a terrible blow to Jackie and John F. Kennedy.
However, it helped to usher in a warmer, more connected — if short-lived period in
the couple's marriage, according to Vanity Fair. It also raised awareness of the most
common cause of death in newborns at the time, per The New York Times.
When a baby is born premature, low birth weight can be an issue, but that was not the case
for Patrick Kennedy, who weighed in at over 4 pounds. However, at nearly six weeks premature,
Patrick's lungs were not able to produce enough of a substance called surfactant,
which helps keep the lung's air sacs open,
according to Boston Children's Hospital. When the alveoli collapse, the damaged cells — known
as hyaline [] membranes — collect in the airways, making breathing even more difficult.
Survival of hyaline membrane disease — or respiratory distress syndrome,
as it is now known — requires ventilated breathing assistance, but that was not understood at the
time of Patrick's birth, according to ABC News. The circumstances of Patrick's death
helped catalyze the development of the neonatal intensive care unit and the study of neonatology.
Today, a vast majority of babies born with the condition survive.
"I can now retire from politics after having had, uh, Happy Birthday sung to me
in such a sweet and wholesome way."
In "These Few Precious Days," which chronicled the final days of Jackie and John F. Kennedy's
life together, author Christopher Andersen asserts that while Jackie Kennedy tolerated
her husband's numerous alleged infidelities, one in particular raised concerns, according to Vanity
Fair. That was his rumored affair with Marilyn Monroe, and Anderson speculates this is because
Jackie regarded Marilyn as someone who could not be trusted to conduct herself with the level of
discretion that Jackie believed was critical to the Kennedys' carefully constructed public life.
And she might not have been wrong, had Monroe not died of a drug overdose at age 36 on August 4,
1962, several months after her alleged affair with JFK began,
per Irish Central. As Anderson tells it, Monroe had apparent designs on JFK as her next husband,
and even went so far as to call Jackie Kennedy on the telephone to inform her that John had
promised to marry her, per CBS News. Jackie was unfazed, saying, according to Andersen's book:
"Marilyn, you'll marry [John], that's great ... and you'll move into the White House and you'll
assume the responsibilities of first lady, and I'll move out and you'll have all the problems."
The fact that Jackie Kennedy tolerated John F. Kennedy's various alleged infidelities and spoke
of them glibly if at all does not mean Jackie had no feelings about her husband's reported interest
in other women. In fact, there were two instances in which she is believed to have entertained
divorcing him, according to Randy Taraborrelli, author of "Jackie, Janet and Lee" — via People.
Jackie is said to have confided in her friend,
artist William Walton, per the New York Daily News, telling him:
"Because of my father, I was used to infidelities, but Jack's womanizing hurt me greatly."
She is also believed to have made various attempts to keep John satisfied intimately,
including doing the deed with him on Air Force One, as historian William Manchester claimed
Jackie confided to him, per the New York Post.
Late in life, Jackie Kennedy famously offered the following sage advice on love and marriage:
"The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship."
Nevertheless, Jackie never married a third time — not because she didn't find that companionship
in her relationship with New York City diamond importer Maurice Tempelsman,
who People claims was Jackie's soulmate throughout her final years. Rather,
it was because Tempelsman was still married to his first wife,
who would not agree to a divorce for religious reasons, per Town & Country.
Jackie Kennedy met Tempelsman for the first time as a result of business he had with JFK
concerning the South African diamond trade, but they didn't become a couple until 1982,
per People. They then remained inseparable until Jackie's death from cancer in 1994.
Of course, this doesn't diminish the love Jackie had for John. In fact, his death devastated
Jackie, who told Father Joseph Leonard in a letter that she would have rather died than lose him,
via The Irish Times. She also told friends in the wake of the assassination that her life was over,
per Vanity Fair. The fact that Jackie could find a loving relationship that
lasted until the end of her life might be inspiring to others mourning a similar loss.