Janet Lee Bouvier


Janet Norton Lee Auchincloss, formerly Bouvier, was an American socialite and the mother of the former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Early life

Janet Norton Lee was born on December 3, 1907, in Manhattan, New York City. She was the middle daughter of James Thomas Aloysius Lee, a lawyer and real estate developer, and Margaret A. Merritt. Her parents were both of Irish Catholic descent. She had two sisters; Marion Merritt Lee, who married John J. Ryan Jr., and Margaret Winifred Lee, who married Franklin D'Olier.

Life

Janet graduated from Miss Spence's School and attended Sweet Briar and Barnard Colleges. She was a member of the Barnard College class of 1929 but records show that she did not graduate. She was a three-time winner of the hunter championship at the National Horse Show.
She served as a board member of the Newport Historical Society and the Redwood Library. She was also the honorary director of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association in Stratford, Virginia.

Personal life

Janet was married three times. In 1928, she married her first husband, John Vernou Bouvier III. He was the son of Major John Vernou Bouvier Jr., a successful attorney, and Maude Frances Sergeant. He was also the brother of Edith Bouvier Beale, later known as the subject of the documentary film, Grey Gardens. Together, they were the parents of two daughters:
Mr. 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.
In 1942, she married her second husband, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss Jr., an attorney and Standard Oil heir; becoming his third wife. Together, they had two children:
Hugh Auchincloss died in 1976. In 1979, she married for a third time, to her childhood friend Bingham Willing "Booch" Morris. Jacqueline served as her witness. Morris, a widower, was a retired investment banker who lived in Southampton, New York, a graduate of St. George's School and Harvard, where he was a member of the Iroquois and Hasty Pudding Clubs, and was the son of Violet Lee Morris and John Boucher Morris of Baltimore. His late wife, Mary Morris, was a bridesmaid at Janet's first wedding. They separated in 1981, but remained married until her death from complications arising from Alzheimer's disease in 1989.