JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS, 1929-1994: AN ELEGANT LADY AND AN AMERICAN ICON

The death last week of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis took from our midst an elegant lady and an American icon. The first First Lady to have been born in the 20th century (just 31 years old when her husband became President), she was a radical departure in appearance and style from the matrons who preceeded her. However one regards the politics of the family Jacqueline Bouvier married into, that she was a lady of remarkable character seems indisputable.

Indeed, for all the somewhat overblown talk of an era of Camelot, it's clear she would prefer to be remembered for the central fact of her life: her family. Widowed at 34, she set doggedly about the business of rearing her two children, and the evidence is she did a good job.

In this, Mrs. Onassis had her priorities straight. She once remarked that we can be successful in many endeavors, but that if we fail in the rearing of our children, then no amount of other success will mean much. There's a world of wisdom in that observation, made all the more compelling -- in an age where public figures speak so much utter nonsense -- by the elegant simplicity of the thought it expresses.

The cancer that took her so quickly will neither dim her memory nor erase her many contributions to her country. We join a grieving nation in saying that we shall miss her.