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By Root 1114 0

the people he wasn't seeing—that's why so few people from Washington—sort of came to them, in a way. And it turned out—well, he loved it. So then he'd say, well, let's have—every now and then— I think we only had about five in all. But after, maybe after three or four months or when there'd been sort of a ghastly month and I had such a stiff neck from being tense, or he'd been having a bad time, he'd say, "Let's have another one of those parties." And, well, he just loved them because then he was—it's sort of a way to renew yourself. He'd always tell me to go visit Lee or go to New York or something, when he could see the tension of there was getting to me. Because you see, when we came in there, I was very weak and plus all the thing of the campaign, plus the baby, plus—and to hit that place running and start to do all the work of running the house, getting a chef, doing the food, the flowers, the reconstruction, restoration, whatever it is. Sometimes at the end of the day you'd just feel one jump away from tears, but you wanted to be so cheerful for Jack when he came home, which I nearly always was, but he could see when it was getting to be a bit too much. And that first winter—I couldn't sleep very well. He'd always send you away and—when he knew you were tired. And then you'd come back so happy again. I always think our whole married life was renewals of love after, you know, brief separations.

Where would you go on the weekends in that first—

Glen Ora.

Glen Ora.

GLEN ORA, MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA

Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

JACQUELINE KENNEDY RIDING AT GLEN ORA WITH CAROLINE AND JOHN

Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

We didn't use—it's funny, he never thought of using Camp David, either. I'd sort of had this thing about having to get a house in the country, and he'd hated Camp David when he went there with Eisenhower. He said, "It's the most depressing-looking place"—which it is, from the outside. Then Taz Shepard, his naval aide, kept pestering and pestering him to go there. And Tish used to say to me, "The navy's so hurt and demoralized he won't go there." So finally, one weekend, he said, "All right, let's go to Camp David." Then he got to rather love it because it is comfortable, so then we'd go there a bit, but go to Glen Ora65 mostly on weekends, which he didn't like really, at all.

RIDING AND FOX HUNTING

Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Boston

Why didn't he like Glen Ora?

Well, you know, there's nothing for him to do. Camp David, I suppose, you could have a movie at night. And it's just a rather small, dark house. He liked to see me ride—you know, be happy being out in the air all day, because he always said Daddy66 told him, "Keep her riding and she'll always be in a good mood." Well, in a way, the thing that that means is exercise and fresh air, which is true. You make an extra effort every day to go out and play tennis, though I couldn't play it. Or just get in the air, walk ten times around the South Lawn. Because if you just stay indoors and smoke cigarettes and work at your desk and talk on the telephone until you know your throat is all tight, you can't be gay for anyone. Then we started to go to Camp David that spring. And he'd always come down. I think rarely he came Friday evening, he'd always come Saturday, sort of at lunchtime. And then he'd sleep all Saturday afternoon and then he'd watch, all the afternoon, television or something from his bed. It was just a letdown for him. And we'd always have a friend for the weekend, have dinner, go to bed early, church the next day, papers, another nap. Because he said, "I don't really care about Glen Ora because all I use it for is to sleep."

He preserved his weekends very faithfully. Almost every weekend he went off.

Practically every weekend, except the—which was the—'62? There'd be some weekend, election things he'd have to do, or a