Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Jackie's Letters and Drawings Archive (1939-1963)

Many more to add.

I love Jackie's art style 
and handwriting, they're so unique.



Age 10:


Thoughts 

I love the Autumn,
And yet I cannot say
All the thoughts and things
That make one feel this way. 

I love walking on the angry shore,
To watch the angry sea;
Where summer people were before,
But now there’s only me. 

I love wood fires at night
That have a ruddy glow.
I stare at the flames
And think of long ago. 

I love the feeling down inside me
That says to run away
To come and be a gypsy
And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,
The snowy mist at morn,
The wanderlust inside you
When you hear the huntsman’s horn. 

Nostalgia- that’s the Autumn,
Dreaming through September
Just a million lovely things
I always will remember

Jackie Kennedy--1943

(okay that actually made me cry. I am literally weeping right now.)


Other version:



(ouch, my heart.)




(How prescient!)




1952?






















I can't breathe omg Jackie







Vogue “Prix de Paris” Contest
Self-Portrait Essay Submitted by Jacqueline Bouvier 1951

A self portrait written from the author’s viewpoint is liable to be a little biased. Written from the viewpoint of others it would probably be so derogatory that I would not care to send it in. I have no idea how to go about describing myself but perhaps with much sifting of wheat from chaff I can produce something fairly accurate.

As to physical appearance, I am tall, 5’7”, with brown hair, a square face and eyes so unfortunately far apart that it takes three weeks to have a pair of glasses made with a bridge wide enough to fit over my nose. I do not have a sensational figure but can look slim if I pick the right clothes. I flatter myself on being able at times to walk out of the house looking like the poor man’s Paris copy, but often my mother will run up to inform me that my left stocking seam is crooked or the right-hand topcoat button about to fall off. This, I realize, is the Unforgiveable Sin.

I lived in New York City until I was thirteen and spent summers in the country. I hated dolls, loved horses and dogs and had skinned knees and braces on my teeth for what must have seemed an interminable length of time to my family.

I read a lot when I was little, much of which was too old for me. There were Chekov and Shaw in the room where I had to take naps and I never slept but sat on the window sill reading, then scrubbed the soles of my feet so the nurse would not see I had been out of bed. My heroes were Byron, Mowgli, Robin Hood, Little Lord Fauntleroy’s grandfather, and Scarlett O’Hara.
Growing up was not too painful a process. It happened gradually over the three years I spent at boarding school trying to imitate the girls who had callers every Saturday. I passed the finish line when I learned to smoke, in the balcony of the Normandie theatre in New York from a girl who pressed a Longfellow upon me then led me from the theatre when the usher told her that other people could not hear the film with so much coughing going on.

I spent two years at Vassar and still cannot quite decide whether I liked it or not. I wish I had worked harder and gone away less on weekends. Last winter I took my Junior Year in Paris and spent the vacations in Austria and Spain. I loved it more than any other year of my life. Being away from home gave me a chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye. I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again but with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me.

I suppose one should mention one’s hobbies in a profile. I really don’t have any that I work at constantly. I have studied art, here and in Paris, and I love to go to Art Exhibits and paint things that my mother doesn’t put in the closet until a month after I have given them to her at Christmas. I have written a children’s book for my younger brother and sister, as it amuses me to make up fairy tales and illustrate them. I love to ride and fox hunt. I will drop everything any time to read a book on ballet. This winter I am trying to catch up on things I should have learned before. I am taking typing and Interior Decorating outside of college and learning to play bridge and trying to cook things from recipes I found in France. I am afraid I will never be very successful over a hot stove.

One of my most annoying faults is getting very enthusiastic over something at the beginning and then tiring of it half way through. I am trying to counteract this by not getting too enthusiastic over too many things at once.



Only image I can find of "Windy Song"


Why does this image make me laugh so much omg 
Sept 1954 
(what the heck is iron gray hair? 
I have never seen a 1954 picture of Jackie that's in 
color so I don't know what her hair color was at the time...)










(Okay I am just sitting here cry-laughing my eyes out at these cartoons. OMG.)








Transcript & description of some 1945-1947 letters:


(For some reason, this illustration is making me laugh uncontrollably)

















My transcript to all of those random bits 
of letters to Father Leonard:
(Randomly arranged)

...I love to think of you concealing it from everyone at All Hallows- It serves you right for branding me with such a frivolous name--

Nothing very much has been happening here- It is dreary winter weather and we all have colds- Yusha graduated from Yale + is home trying to get into the Marines- but is having a lot of trouble because of the most pathetic ailment- Varicose Veins!

My sister is dying to go to Europe next summer- She has never been and I am trying to persuade Mummy that it ///
~
...I really longed to do and if Uncle Lefty comes back and gloats about it I think I will just tell a lie + say I did it too--

I am SO glad you said yes to the wedding-- I have been trying to introduce Yusha to some nice Catholic girls so he can profit from your trip too-- Mummy and Uncle Hugh have caught wind of the plan and are so itching to meet you that I am afraid they will sign me away to the next poor boy that wanders in the front door-- ///
~
Dearest Father Leonard- 
How I loved your letter describing Aunt G's + Uncle L's trip- It was horrible to have to read of all the things they were doing + realize that I am stuck here when I would so love to be trotting through the rain in Dublin with you-- eating at Jannets (?)- making Yusha carry my Waterford glass-- seeing the Kennedy's etc-- There is one thing I just hope they didn't do-- + that is shake hands with the mummy in- is it St. Michan's Church? ///
~
...with the first time- + that I would really be a much better guide- They have mapped out the most studious trip for us- every cathedral + museum on the continent- It doesn't look as if we will have a second to steal away to Dublin in- but perhaps we can change that-

My brother Jamie just had a birthday party- He is 4- + we have all his screaming little friends goldfish- which they fought over and spilled on the floor and the nurses were all furious at having to carry great sloshing bowls home with them--

I will write you again very soon- You have been a conscientious correspondent ///
~
Dec 5, 1951 (?)

Dearest Father Leonard--
If you thought you could have a peaceful winter without any correspondence from me- you were wrong! Lee and I are just back from our 3 month Odyssey- which was so unbelievably perfect- We went to England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria Germany and Luxembourg in our little English car which we brought gasping back to Paris aching for a rest- and sold it to a missionary who ///
~
...a missionary but he looked more  like an opium smuggler to me and was just about to give me the money in a shoebox on a dark corner- but I dragged him to a bank!

In Spain we went to about 10 bullfights- and caused a minor riot at the first one. Lee burst into tears as the bull charged the horses and hid her face- and the Spaniard next to her kept trying to make her look up- and another Spaniard told him to let her alone- + they started fighting + everyone in the grandstand took sides until finally the policemen ///

(Come on! I wanted to keep reading that!!)
~
...were moved to different seats- between 2 old women! Then we fought calves at somebody's breeding farm- wearing red skirts which were much brighter than the capes- + of course we were knocked down- but the calves weren't any bigger than Great Danes so it was all right- in Italy we met Bernard Berenson- the art scholar in Florence- + capsized in a torchlight procession on the Grand Canal in Venice- + went to the Salzburg music festival- + just wandered around Paris being in love with that city. 

I never had a better time in Europe- + thought I would be miserable to come home but thank heavens I'm not at all- + have all sorts of plans for a wonderful winter.

I told this artist in Paris to look you up- as I wanted a report on you- + I hope you get this before he appears. He did the portrait of a friend of mine- Shirley Oakes- + is going to England to arrange an exhibition there + then to Dublin- He couldn't be nicer or more intelligent but you just might be a little shocked when you first see him-- He has long hair which stands up perfectly straight on his head. His name is Sevek Rachmann + he's a nephew of Rachmaninoff and I gave him thousands of messages to give you from me- Then later on this winter a terribly attractive young married couple from Washington-- Hamilton and Julia Fish and their 2 month old baby are being stationed in Dublin in the Diplomatic Corps + I've given ///
~
Dearest Father Leonard
Such a long silence from me- and books and letters pouring in from you- Your last letter was such a wonderful thing that only you could write- but so wrong in one part- how can you say courage is a commodity of which you do not have a large supply. You can't ever say anything disparaging about yourself without causing heated indignation in me. It wasn't a very happy time- I guess that's why I haven't written you. I was going to explain it to you- but once it had calmed down I hated the thought of hashing it all over again. I know it's for the best now and that I've learned so much from this- but it seems a shamed comment on my maturity that I had to learn the thing you look for to build a life together on this way. I'm ashamed that we both went into it so quickly and gaily but I think the suffering it brought us both for a while afterwards was the best thing- we both needed something of a shock to make us grow up. I don't know if John has- I haven't seen him and I don't really want to, not out of meanness- it's just better if that all dies away + we gorget we knew each other- but I know it's grown me up and it's about time! The next time will be ALL RIGHT and have a happy ending--

How can I ever thank you enough for all those precious books- Do you realize the treasures you are sending me- I'm surprised they let you send them out of the country. I'm afraid I haven't had time to read them all- I won't pretend I have because you'd know- except Bernard Shaw Et La France which I'm reading now- + which is so ///
~
...ever had a more willing piece of putty to work with.
I can't remember if I ever told you- but I finally have a job- It's on the Times-Herald- a McCormack paper which I'm afraid is so reactionary + scandalous but the people on it are the most fun + the kindest + the most different I've ever met and I'm in love with the newspaper world- They are such rough diamonds it's almost trite- the  toughest reporter of all didn't think he'd like me at all at first because I'd been to a "Finishing school" etc- but he finally decided he did- + the only way he could think of showing it was to offer me the biggest treat he could think of- he told me that the next time he got 2 tickets to an execution he'd take me! I'm afraid I didn't look quite as thrilled as he expected-- ///
~
Fascinating because it ties in with everything I was studying my winter in Paris- the one field I knew a little something about is 199th cent French literature + this shows you a whole new other side + fits him in where I never thought he'd fit- You know the most wonderful thing about those books-- I was really scared once I left college I would never learn anymore- just read best-sellers + maybe a couple of things like history I'd never learned there + bit by bit forget so much-- And you're keeping me learning + opening up so many new worlds-- I could never do that by myself no matter how much I wanted to because I just didn't know those books + those authors existed- but it seems to me you know everything + from all you've read + learned you can pick + choose the most lovely things for me-- Does it give you a sense of power to think you're molding someone else's mind + taste?- I hope it does + certainly no one ///
~
I'm sending you the St Patricks Day column I did at the Irish Embassy- they were so sweet there + one of them talked just like Hugh Kennedy- I didn't think anyone else in the world could speak that way + it made me so homesick he could hardly get me out of the place- I have my name on the column now Jacqueline Bouvier the Inquiring Photographer staggering around the streets clutching her 50 pound camera about which she knows nothing except how to cluck the shutter-- It's really ridiculous but it's fun--

Also did you know Lee was in Rome this winter because I remember you mentioned your friend there + I thought it would be so heavenly if she could meet him-- seeing that you are getting much too interested in her I have decided to make a really cagey move and get het hopelessly involved with a friend of yours- then you'll have to devote yourself to me- In care you want to write her about him her address is do Marchesa marignoli Via Mangili 40-- 

or you can just tell me + I'll tell her- but if its ANY TROUBLE please please don't bother- As usual I start writing you + its going to be just a normal sized letter + I end up limp an hour later with writer's cramp-- I'm really going to work on these books- then I'll write you about how I admire them more specifically- 
So much love you you
Jacqueline
~

(I WANT TO READ MORE! I AM HAVING TROUBLES FINDING MORE OF HER LETTERS ONLINE, THOUGH.) :(


October 1953:

Meanwhile in Massachusetts Jack Kennedy dreamed 



Walking the shore by the Cape Cod Sea
Of all the things he was going to be.

He breathed in the tang of the New England fall

And back in his mind he pictured it all,

The burnished New England countryside

Names that a patriot says with pride

Concord and LexingtonBunker Hill

Plymouth and Falmouth and Marston's Mill

Winthrop and SalemLowell, Revere

Quincy and CambridgeLouisburg Square.

This was his heritage—this his share

Of dreams that a young man harks in the air.

The past reached out and tracked him now 



He would heed that touch; he didn’t know how.

Part he must serve, a part he must lead

Both were his calling, both were his need. 



Part he was of New England stock

As stubborn, close-guarded as Plymouth Rock

He thought with his feet most firm on the ground

But his heart and his dreams were not earthbound

He would call New England his place and his creed

But part he was of an alien breed

Of a breed that had laughed on Irish hills

And heard the voice in Irish rills



The lilt of that green land danced in his blood

Tara, Killarney, a magical flood

That surged in the depth of his too-proud heart

And spiked the punch of New England so tart

Men would call him thoughtful, sincere

They would not see through to the Last Cavalier 



He turned on the beach and looked toward his house. 

On a green grass lawn his white house stands

And the wind blows the sea grass low on the sands

There his brothers and sisters have laughed and played 

And thrown themselves to rest in the shade.

The lights glowed inside, soon supper would ring

And he would go home where his father was King.

But now he was here with the wind and the sea

And all the things he was going to be.


He would build empires 

And he would have sons

Others would fall

Where the current runs 
He would find love

He would never find peace

For he must go seeking

The Golden Fleece 



All of the things he was going to be

All of the things in the wind and the sea





(I'm crying again)














(Extra:)
Not done by Jackie but drawings and paintings of Jackie that I like.






So I am obsessed with this painting done by Ethel Kennedy some time before 1960, but I can't find any information about it anywhere and it's driving me insane! Look at iiiiittttttt!




Extra Stuff: