Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born July 28, 1929, on a stiflingly hot Sunday in Southampton. Janet wanted her daughter's name to be pronounced the French “Jaquesleen” but Jack called her Jackie.

Bud Bouvier

The joy of Jackie's birth was tempered in the autumn of 1929 by two equally traumatic events. On October 7, Jack's younger brother Bud died. He was just thirty-six. While the official cause of death was acute alcohol poisoning, some believed he was yet another casualty of the Great War. Bud had been attending Yale when World War I broke out. Angered over the German invasion of France, he dropped out his senior year to enlist in the army. He excelled and quickly rose through the ranks to captain. His division was sent to France, where he fought in several major confrontations and was gassed while participating in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Bud was sent home to recuperate, but friends and family say he never fully recovered from the experience.

In the years after the war, Bud became an aimless drinker. The family intervened several times, sending him to rehabs in New Jersey, Connecticut, and even California. The lure of the bottle proved too great. His marriage ended in divorce, and Bud died drunk and alone in California. Bud left his son, Miche, in Jack's care, and the boy became an unofficial big brother to Jackie and her younger sister.

The Crash

Eight days after Bud's death, the stock market crashed. At first, it looked as if Black Jack might come out all right. Sensing trouble in the market, he had sold his shares short and earned $100,000. But the prices kept falling, and by November he had lost all the money. The Major suffered significant losses but maintained his lifestyle by living on savings while he waited for the real estate market to pick back up. The only one who remained financially secure was Jack's uncle, M. C. Bouvier. He had no debt and a hard cash reserve of $1.6 million. Including his various bonds, his total assets amounted to nearly $4 million.

For Black Jack, the future was financially bleak. By this point in his life, he had squandered millions of dollars on a reckless, self-indulgent lifestyle and had nothing to show for his years on Wall Street. The crash became a full-blown economic depression, and his source of income dried up to practically nothing.

He asked his family for help, but the only one in a position to help was M. C. Instead of the $1 million Jack wanted — the equivalent of over $11 million in today's dollars — M. C. gave him a $25,000 loan. Jack was insulted and angry.

Although it would take until the start of World War II for the country to fully recover from the Great Depression, Janet and Jack borrowed money, lived on credit, and went into debt to continue to live in the style to which they had become accustomed. Thanks to the generosity of his parents, who rented them a summer cottage, they continued to spend the seasons in East Hampton, a magical time that would have a lasting impact on Jackie.