Jackie's Girl: Memoirs of Jackie Kennedy

“Kathy McKeon's delightful memories have been tucked away for fifty years, and thankfully, she has brought them out to share the enchanting magic of Camelot with us all.” —Kirkus Reviews

"An endearing coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who spent thirteen years as Jackie Kennedy’s personal assistant and occasional nanny—and the lessons about life and love she learned from the glamorous first lady. In 1964, Kathy McKeon was just nineteen and newly arrived from Ireland when she was hired as the personal assistant to former first lady Jackie Kennedy. Kathy not only played a crucial role in raising young Caroline and John Jr., but also had a front-row seat to some of the twentieth century’s most significant events. Because Kathy was always at Jackie’s side, Rose Kennedy deemed her “Jackie’s girl.” And although Kathy called Jackie “Madam,” she considered her employer more like a big sister who was also her mentor. Kathy witnessed Jackie and Aristotle Onassis’s courtship and marriage and Robert Kennedy’s assassination, dutifully supporting Jackie and the children during these tumultuous times in history. A rare and engrossing look at the private life of one of the most famous women of the twentieth century, Jackie’s Girl is also a moving personal story of a young woman finding her identity in a new country, along with the help of the most elegant woman in America." amazon.com

Shoes were actually the very first thing Jackie Kennedy and I bonded over. I somehow convinced myself that the thick-soled nurse’s shoes I bought were as stylish as they were practical. Off to the kitchen I picked up Jackie’s tray of tea, toast, a soft-boiled egg, and the daily newspapers. Her corner bedroom faced the broad sweep of Fifth Avenue and Central Park along the front, and the narrower, quieter Eighty-fifth Street to the side. But as I walked from window to window I became aware of a persistent little squeaking sound. The realization that it was coming from my feet, which were perspiring against the rubber of my new shoes made me more nervous. I hurried into the bathroom, hoping Jackie would think I was merely arranging towels, and frantically rummaged through her cupboards until I found the talcum powder. I sat down on the closed toilet lid and thoroughly dusted the inside of each shoe. I hurried back into the master bedroom, my shoes blissfully quiet. All that powder felt silky on my feet, too. No cheap drugstore stuff in that bathroom. My relief was short-lived when I noticed something floating around my feet at ground level, like a little white cloud. Jackie was busy with her breakfast by then and hadn’t noticed what I now spotted—powder marks all over her carpet. I took a few tentative steps and saw white puffs shooting out of my shoes. I darted back into the bathroom, shutting the door this time, and sat on the toilet lid again, trying to figure out what to do, now that my shoes were emitting what looked like smoke. Now I was trapped in Jacqueline Kennedy’s bathroom. I put my head in my hands and started laughing uncontrollably. “Kathy, is everything all right?” I heard the door open, and the worry in Jackie’s voice as she took in the sight of me with my face still buried in my hands, shoulders shaking. “What’s wrong?” she asked kindly. I was too embarrassed to answer, and in the midst of my giggling fit I wouldn’t have been able to get an intelligible sentence out anyway, so I jumped up and ran past her, shooting puffs of powder from my shoes as I fled. I was losing too much powder, though, and the squeaking noises were back, sounding louder and more urgent as I sprinted to my room. I collapsed on the bed, burying my face in the pillow to muffle my laughter. “Kathy?” Jackie tapped on the closed door. She stepped in, her perfectly arched brows furrowed with concern. The look on her face quickly turned to bewilderment when she realized that I was laughing, not sobbing. Unless I wanted a Secret Service escort to the loony bin, it was time to come clean. As I started to explain the whole story, Jackie burst into laughter, which sent me into another spasm of hysterics, and by the time I led her into the hallway to point out my telltale trail of powdered footprints, both of us had tears running down our cheeks.The rest of the staff took turns peeking around the corner, trying to see what was so amusing. We finally composed ourselves, and Jackie was still chuckling when she ventured into the kitchen, where the rest of the staff were clamoring to know what had just happened with the new girl. “Oh, that Kath is just too funny,” I overheard Jackie say.

While we were on holiday in Ireland, I would take John and Caroline on long walks through the green countryside, and they would delight in the sheep ranging free in the hills around us. I explained how the different-colored x’s painted on their backs helped identify which farmer they belonged to. John and Caroline had a deep compassion for all living things. One of John’s favorite toys was that big semi-truck he used to roll noisily down the hallway at the crack of dawn in hopes of rousing Maud Shaw, or me to come keep him company. It opened and closed like a garage in the back, and John often shut his hamster inside to give it joy rides, the joy being likely more John’s than the hamster's. One day he took a break from playing to wander into the kitchen for a midafternoon snack. He parked his truck by the back elevator and forgot about it. The next morning, when he went to get his hamster out of its cage and discovered it empty, he raced to me in tears. We went and found the truck. The guinea pig was alive, but wobbly. Caroline pounced on her forgetful brother. “How could you do such a horrible thing, John? she wailed. “I didn’t mean to!” John cried. The guinea pig was revived with food and water, and he lived to ride again.

Despite his intense gaze and coarse exterior, Mr. Onassis quickly proved to be a true gentleman; I had expected such a rich, important man to be cold and demanding, but he was friendly to the help, which always says something promising about a person’s character. He was also extremely generous. I knocked gently on Caroline’s door and went to sit on her bed, where she was curled up with her face in the pillow, her small shoulders heaving with her sobs. I couldn’t begin to imagine how she felt. A framed picture of JFK was always on her nightstand. I knew that however great a hero he was considered as president, he would always be ten times that hero to Caroline and John as a father. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’ll all work out good. He’s a nice man.” Hollow as the words must have sounded to a despairing ten-year-old, I meant every one. From what little I had seen of Aristotle Onassis, he seemed to genuinely want the children to like him. “We’re going to Greece,” Caroline said desperately. Caroline, always the good girl who minded her mother, composed herself and got up to pack for whatever new life was awaiting her now. “She told me I would need a couple of nice dresses.” We pulled out some shorts and bathing suits, too, and I went to see about John, who was hanging close to his mother but didn’t seem visibly upset by the prospect of getting a stepfather. 

It took some doing for John to dislike anyone, and Onassis had shown him only kindness. By the time she returned from her honeymoon cruising the Greek isles, Jackie Kennedy had become Jackie O. I was touched when Jackie went out of her way to make me feel special, surprising me with a strawberry and whipped cream cake and some lovely gifts—two turtleneck sweaters, a suede purse and a silver cigarette holder—for my twenty-first birthday.

“I envy you two starting out, doing it all your way,” Jackie said wistfully one day. She was hungry to hear all about my plans for setting up house with Seamus. I realized for the first time that she must have felt the same way I had, though on a much grander level, about the magnetic force of the Kennedy family pulling you close. She had famously redecorated and restored the White House, but here she was wondering what it was like to pick out tea towels at Gimbels. “Kathy, why don’t you and Seamus come down to my storage unit and see what you could use?” Jackie offered. She didn’t have to ask twice. The unit, it turned out, was more like a warehouse, packed with art, furniture, and all kinds of crates and boxes. She led us through the maze of things she’d even forgotten she had, making a list of what we were getting as she went. It was like winning a TV game show starring our very own host, Jacqueline Onassis. She arranged for everything to be loaded onto a truck and delivered to our apartment. Her thoughtfulness touched me more deeply than she could have known. My mother wasn’t going to make it for the wedding, and it felt nice to have Jackie’s attention and interest in my big new beginning. Her generosity didn’t stop there. “Where are you two going on your honeymoon?” she asked. “Someplace warm,” Seamus said. I wondered what lottery he’d won and not told me about. At the rate we were burning through our budget, he could scratch tropical paradise off his list unless Coney Island had palm trees and hula girls. “You should go to Barbados!” Jackie exclaimed. “I have a friend there who runs a resort. Let me book it for you as my wedding gift.” We were floored. Nancy Tuckerman swiftly followed through on the offer, making all the arrangements. 

Everything was being taken care of, from our flights and the gorgeous villa to our meals and even a rented cabana around the island. Mr. Onassis was wishing me well, and said he looked forward to meeting the gentleman lucky enough to marry me, and how lucky I was to have a carpenter as a husband, because I would always have a nice home and someone who was handy at fixing things. Did I know Saint Joseph was a carpenter? he went on. “Do you know what my first job was?” he asked. “I was a busboy cleaning tables. You always have to start from the bottom up to make something of yourself.” There was a check inside the cornflower envelope, too. It was one thousand dollars. His generosity blew me away. This was ten times the annual bonus I had always received from Jackie at Christmastime! John and Caroline had each written me little notes, too, wishing me a happy wedding. I was at home opening RSVPs when several names fluttered out of one envelope. “Seamus, they’re coming to our wedding.” I was in shock. “Oh my God, what do we do now?” He knew exactly who “they” were. I fanned out the response cards: Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis, John Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy. We decided not to tell anybody. If we did and they didn’t show, we’d look like foolish braggarts. And if they were coming, we didn’t want word to leak out ahead of time, or the Astoria Manor would get overrun with paparazzi and crowds of looky-loos. Jackie had lost her Secret Service protection when she remarried. John and Caroline would keep their Secret Service until they were sixteen. 

“Why don’t you bring your family for the summer and stay in the Cape house?” Jackie suggested. We would be the caretakers for the season, and that way the house would always be ready whenever John or Caroline wanted to come. Seamus, she also knew, would ensure that the historic home was well maintained. It was a win-win proposition all around, and every June thereafter, we’d pile the kids, the dog, and all our gear for the summer into our van, bicycles strapped to the roof, and drive up to the Cape. John came back more frequently than Caroline, but the Cape was where she chose to have her wedding in the summer of 1986. I was touched to receive an invitation. John was staying over at the Cape house and immediately offered to babysit our kids Clare, Heather, and Shane; the kids were crazy about John. He was practically a superhero in his eyes. One very funny anecdote was when John admitted that he’d been making hamburgers and left the pan on the burner when he went to take a shower. John had a checkered history of combining showering and cooking; his attention disorder tended to sabotage that kind of multitasking. Seamus and me still remembered that time he had been fresh out of the shower with a towel around his waist when he fired up the grill to make us hamburgers. He’d turned around and lost his towel, causing Seamus to drily remark, “I thought you were making us hamburgers, John, but it looks like we’re getting wieners instead.” John laughed it off, a bit embarassed.

I still saw Jackie every so often, and we were in regular contact by phone, but it had probably been a year since I’d last seen her when I picked up the newspaper and read that she had cancer. There was a paparazzi shot of her in the park. She looked terribly thin and frail. I immediately dialed 1040. John came on the line. “Hi, Kathy,” he said. “It’s so nice of you to think of my mom.” I asked how she was doing, and he told me it didn’t look good. “She’s very, very ill.” We talked for a while, and I hung up, heartsick. I bought a get-well card and mailed it to her with my prayers. One of Jackie’s blue note cards arrived in the mail. On it was a typewritten message thanking me for my lovely card. “I think of you and Seamus and your children often,” it said, “and I hope we can all get together before long.” The last two words, handwritten, were her last to me: Much love. She died just two weeks later. I called Nancy Tuckerman, who told me I could come at two-thirty the next afternoon for the pre-funeral viewing. Jackie’s coffin was in the living room, draped with her favourite floral bedspread. I felt a deep pain in my heart. I had lost a great lady who had been so kind and made me feel like a friend so many times. John came out to greet us warmly. Caroline was at home with her children; the oldest of the three the same age she had been when I first met her. Caroline had sent gifts for my children over the years as well, and her graciousness reminded me so much of her mother.

John and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, were spending more time at Martha's Vineyard, and the place desperately needed some updating to suit a modern young couple. The big burn mark a hot pan had left on the Formica countertop in the kitchen had been hidden by a cutting board for decades, and that was just for starters. John had called Seamus to ask if Seamus could come give him some advice about renovations on the house. The stereo was blasting “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” when Seamus and I walked up the familiar path to the house at the Cape. John had been playing that same Rolling Stones record for a good quarter century—the song was his all-time favorite. How was it even possible that John was now thirty-eight years old? I hadn’t met Carolyn Bessette before, though of course I’d seen pictures of her all over the magazines. She was imposing and very pretty, but different from the other girls John had romanced over the years. Carolyn was harder to read, more distant and mysterious in a way. Her skin was almost as white and translucent as fine porcelain. She wore beige shorts and a black cashmere sweater. She was holding a fluffy tuxedo cat as he shed all over her sweater and cardigan. Seamus later told me John had confided how hurt he was by Carolyn’s apparent disinterest in the house remodeling, which John had tackled with enthusiasm. Carolyn never came up to offer her input. “Isn’t that strange?” John asked. I found it odd, too. You could tell with one glance that Carolyn had flawless taste and a great sense of style. Provi’s Dominican roots made her the absolute queen of daiquiri-making. She insisted on buying the best rum, dozens of fresh limes she squeezed by hand, plus bags of brown sugar. We sat down to dinner, with John insisting I take the seat at the head of the table, the one that had always been Jackie's, back when I was Jackie’s girl.

Carolyn opened up about feeling besieged by the paparazzis. John was clearly worried about his high-strung wife. “Kath, tell Carolyn how Mom used to handle them,” he prompted me. Provi jumped in to answer first, but John cut her off. “No, wait, I want to hear from Kathy,” he said. “When she was up here, she’d leave the gate smiling, give them one good picture, and they’d let her go,” I remembered. “No!” Carolyn nearly shouted. “I hate those bastards! I’d rather just scream and curse at them.” “That’s exactly what they want you to do,” I argued. “They’ll get great pictures.” She described how she had gotten chased down the sidewalk by a wolf pack of photographers, and ducked into a building to escape them. They cornered her by the elevator as she frantically pushed the button. “I can’t take it!,” she said exasperated. John interjected: “You gotta just take it easy,” he insisted. “Relax.” I told Carolyn how Jackie perfected the art of not responding to Ron Galella when he stalked her. “She knew if she kept the same blank expression on her face, he wouldn’t have a picture to sell,” I explained. “They all need something different. That’s why they yell things and try to scare you. They want a reaction. They want to get a picture showing you angry or scared.” We finished up dinner, and John soothed Provi’s ruffled feathers by complimenting her cooking. “This fish is delicious, Provi,” he told her. “The flavors are fantastic.” The gin and all that lime had made it more delectable. The Stones were still playing in the background, the volume lower, but the song was the same. It would finish then start again. I knew it was because John had done what he used to do as a boy with that very record player, adjusting a little pin on the arm so the needle set down in the same groove each time. With John and Carolyn making it their second home, we no longer moved up to the Cape with our family for the summer, but Seamus gave John fatherly advice about the work he was having done and John would ask for estimates and contractor’s bids on his behalf. “If they see my name, they think they’ve hit the lottery and the price gets jacked up four times what it should be,” John said. When they last spoke in the summer of 1999, John was eager to get the place in shape, a few weeks before he and Carolyn went for his cousin Rory’s impending wedding.

Seamus turned on the TV and the screen instantly filled with the image of John’s face with the words BREAKING NEWS beneath it. The reporter was saying the single-engine plane John was piloting had vanished the night before on a flight from the airport in New Jersey up to the Cape for Rory’s wedding. John, Carolyn, and Carolyn’s sister, Lauren, were aboard. I called Provi, who was summering at the compound with her son Gustavo. Provi told me she had dinner ready for John and Carolyn the night before, that Gustavo had left John’s Jeep for him at the airport earlier so it would be there when he landed. On Saturday afternoon, the news reported some piece of luggage bearing Lauren’s ID had washed up on a beach at Martha’s Vineyard. A coast guard admiral delivered a press briefing at the Pentagon, describing all the search efforts under way. Seamus and I had moved out from Queens when the children were growing up, buying a house a block from the shore in Rocky Point, Long Island. Seamus was sure the flight path John had taken would have had him flying right past our house. The night would have still been clear and beautiful then. He would have been safe with us. At Mass on Sunday, we prayed with our congregation for the Kennedy family, and for the Bessettes. The priest left prayer cards and red roses at the back of the church to take on our way out. Later that night, the coast guard admiral was back on TV, announcing that they were shifting their focus from search and rescue to search and recovery, official words to say they had given up hope. On the fifth day, the bodies of John, Carolyn, and Lauren were recovered and cremated. Their ashes were scattered at sea the next morning. Attending the funeral service at St. Thomas More, we ran into Ethel Kennedy. “We lost a good man today,” Seamus told her. “Seamus, we don’t know what we lost today,” she replied urgently. “We have no idea.” “That’s the end of Camelot,” I said, sobbing. I woke up convinced I had dreamed it all, or maybe blacked out. It didn’t happen, none of it. It couldn’t happen again. —"Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family" (2017) by Kathy McKeon