Jackie's Interests

Jackie was well educated from the day she was born. She once said, “All my greatest interests in literature, arts, Shakespeare, and poetry were formed because I was fortunate enough to find superb teachers in these fields (5).” One of her first influences was her “Grampy Jack”. He influenced her deeply in writing, history, the classics, and poetry (5).  Jackie also attended Miss Porter’s School, a girl’s boarding school.  It had a huge effect on how she carried herself, as well as her education (5).  Jackie was fortunate enough to learn Latin, French, Spanish, German, all as a teenager (5).  She would find out later in life how utterly important these learning experiences would be to her.  

Jackie’s interests varied.  She hated dolls, but loved dogs, horses, and skinned knees (5).  She loved to read instead of taking naps (5).  Jackie’s love for animals led to her first opinion on public issues.  The issue that first touched and angered her was the practice of Vivisection (5).  Vivisection is experimenting on live animals for researching physiological patterns. Jackie always put her mind first in everything she did.  She believed brains were better than brawns, so she never really stressed outer beauty (5).  A terrible occurrence that impacted Jackie greatly was with her parent’s separation when she was only six (5).  Her dad was a heavy drinker, and that was a contributing factor for the separation.  They finally divorced in 1940, and sent their two daughters into a state of shock.  Jackie, for the rest of her adolescence, blamed herself for the parents failed marriage.