Janet Norton Lee Bouvier Auchincloss Morris
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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.
She was the daughter of James Thomas Lee and Margaret A. Merritt and studied at Sweet Briar College, and later at Vassar, but did not graduate from either institution. Her paternal grandfather, a potato-famine Irish immigrant, was a superintendent of New York City public schools, though Janet Lee Bouvier preferred to tell people that he was a Maryland-born veteran of the United States Civil War.
She married three times. Her first husband, John Vernou Bouvier III, also known as John Vernou "Black Jack" Bouvier III, was Jackie's father. They were married July 7, 1928 and had two daughters--Jackie and her sister Lee Radziwill (b.March 3, 1933). John's womanizing and drinking led to a separation in 1936 and divorce in 1940.
Janet's second husband was Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who provided a secure financial future. They were married on June 21, 1942 and had two children together: Janet Jennings Auchincloss Rutherfurd (1945-1985), who briefly dated John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, while she was a student at Miss Porter's, and James L. Auchincloss in 1947.
Her third marriage was to Bingham "Booch" Morris on October 25, 1979.
A social climber, she felt her daughter Jackie married beneath herself.
References
- Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, by Jan Pottke