JFK+50: Volume 6, No. 1990
TABLE 40 AT THE PARKER HOUSE OR BOOTH 3 AT MARTIN'S TAVERN?
Boston/Georgetown (JFK+50) Sixty-three years ago today, June 24, 1953, the most eligible bachelor in the Congress of the United States, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, asked Jacqueline Bouvier for her hand in marriage. Just where that romantic event took place is not so clear.
According to Rebecca Ryan, writing for the Omni-Parker Hotels and Resorts, in the summer of 1953...
"24 year old...Jacaqueline Bouvier" received "a glittering emerald diamond ring, custom made..."
from Senator Kennedy at Parker's Restaurant* in Boston's Back Bay. Ms. Ryan goes on to add that the event took place at Table 40.
But Billy Martin's Tavern in Georgetown (District of Columbia) has long claimed that it was in their Booth 3, now dubbed 'the proposal booth,' where Jack popped the question.
Emily Heil, writing in the Washington Post, supported that claim last year by reporting that then 98 year old Marion Smoak, a former ambassador and chief of protocol, had not only been at Martin's Restaurant on the night of June 24, 1953, but remembers clearly seeing the young couple in the booth and the buzz going around among the patrons that the Senator had proposed and Jackie had accepted.
Hugh and Janet Auchincloss of Hammersmith Farm announced the engagement of their daughter, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.
The couple had been introduced at a Georgetown dinner party hosted by mutual friend and newspaperman, Charles Bartlett. At the time they met, Jackie was the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald.
The wedding ceremony was held at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island on September 12, 1953.
*Omni Parker House was founded by Harvey D. Parker in Boston's Back Bay in 1855. It is the oldest of the city's elegant inns & the longest continuously operated hotel in the USA.
**Martin's Tavern is located at 1264 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1933 & has hosted every President of the United States from Harry S Truman to George W. Bush.
SOURCES
"Historic Omni Parker House, Our Storied History in Boston," www.omnihotels.com/
"JFK and Jackie O, a Boston Proposal," by Rebecca Ryan, edited by Jorja Swaney, www.omnihotels.com/
"JFK's proposal to Jackie at Martin's Tavern is 'legend' no more," by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/
Jennifer White Sits in
TABLE 40 AT THE PARKER HOUSE OR BOOTH 3 AT MARTIN'S TAVERN?
Boston/Georgetown (JFK+50) Sixty-three years ago today, June 24, 1953, the most eligible bachelor in the Congress of the United States, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, asked Jacqueline Bouvier for her hand in marriage. Just where that romantic event took place is not so clear.
According to Rebecca Ryan, writing for the Omni-Parker Hotels and Resorts, in the summer of 1953...
"24 year old...Jacaqueline Bouvier" received "a glittering emerald diamond ring, custom made..."
from Senator Kennedy at Parker's Restaurant* in Boston's Back Bay. Ms. Ryan goes on to add that the event took place at Table 40.
But Billy Martin's Tavern in Georgetown (District of Columbia) has long claimed that it was in their Booth 3, now dubbed 'the proposal booth,' where Jack popped the question.
Emily Heil, writing in the Washington Post, supported that claim last year by reporting that then 98 year old Marion Smoak, a former ambassador and chief of protocol, had not only been at Martin's Restaurant on the night of June 24, 1953, but remembers clearly seeing the young couple in the booth and the buzz going around among the patrons that the Senator had proposed and Jackie had accepted.
Hugh and Janet Auchincloss of Hammersmith Farm announced the engagement of their daughter, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.
The couple had been introduced at a Georgetown dinner party hosted by mutual friend and newspaperman, Charles Bartlett. At the time they met, Jackie was the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald.
The wedding ceremony was held at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island on September 12, 1953.
*Omni Parker House was founded by Harvey D. Parker in Boston's Back Bay in 1855. It is the oldest of the city's elegant inns & the longest continuously operated hotel in the USA.
**Martin's Tavern is located at 1264 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1933 & has hosted every President of the United States from Harry S Truman to George W. Bush.
SOURCES
"Historic Omni Parker House, Our Storied History in Boston," www.omnihotels.com/
"JFK and Jackie O, a Boston Proposal," by Rebecca Ryan, edited by Jorja Swaney, www.omnihotels.com/
"JFK's proposal to Jackie at Martin's Tavern is 'legend' no more," by Emily Heil, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/
Jennifer White Sits in
the "Proposal Booth"
Billy Martin's Tavern
Photo by John White (2011)
