A selection of the letters and a photo of Mrs. Kennedy with Fr. Leonard in 1950. (Click on image to enlarge it).
With Fr. Leonard at All Hallows in Dublin in 1950.
A cache of 33 letters written by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy to Dublin based priest Fr. Joseph Leonard will be offered by Sheppards in Durrow, Co. Laois on June 10. The unpublished personal correspondence, in manuscript form and written between 1950 and 1964, cover events from her engagement to Senator Kennedy to his assassination in 1963. In them she expresses thoughts about her marriage, life in the White House and her reaction to his assassination.
In her raw grief she wrote to Fr. Leonard: “I would rather have lost my life than lost Jack”. She told Fr. Leonard that Kennedy was consumed by ambition “like “Macbeth” and described him as like her father in many ways – loves the chase and is bored with the conquest.
Fr. Leonard, an All Hallows priest died in Dublin in 1964 aged 87. He became immediate friends with Jacqueline Bouvier when she and her stepbrother Hugh Dudley Auchincloss called on him during a visit to Dublin in 1950. They corresponded regularly after that. They only met again once, in 1955, when Mrs. Kennedy travelled to Dublin with then Senator John F. Kennedy.
Jacqueline Kennedy never wrote an autobiography. But there is much material for a biography in these letters, which are likely to be published in book form by any purchaser. They are expected to sell for at least one million euro. Sheppards announced today that they will also be offering 21 lots of Jacqueline Kennedy associated correspondence and photographs including correspondence from the White House signed by Mrs. Kennedy and the President. Estimates will range from 400 to 1.2 million. The letters are being sold by All Hallows College, Dublin, which says it does not have the resources to curate them and that they will be a valuable addition to the Kennedy archive. Some of the letters written by Fr. Leonard to Mrs. Kennedy are in the White House “social files” at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.
UPDATE: The cancellation of the sale was announced on May 21. The directors of All Hallows are in discussions with the Kennedy family on how best to curate and preserve this valuable archive.
A statement said: Sheppard’s Irish Auction House was today informed by the vendor that the archive of letters from Jackie Kennedy to Father Joseph Leonard was being withdrawn from auction. Sheppard’s is in the process of returning the archive, and items related to the archive, which had been consigned to the auction, to the vendor.