Jacqueline Kennedy's personal and heartfelt letters to a Catholic priest in Ireland, offering a rare and revealing glimpse of the private thoughts of one of America's most admired first ladies, will no longer be sold at auction, an auction house has announced.
In her letters to Rev. Joseph Leonard, Jackie Kennedy -- who died in 1994 -- wrote of her feelings of love, her concerns about the flirtatious nature of her husband, President John F Kennedy, and later, her struggle with faith after Kennedy's assassination in November 1963.
"Sheppard's is in the process of returning the archive, and items related to the archive, which had been consigned to the auction, to the vendor," Sheppard's Irish Auction House said on its website.
The letters, written over a period of 14-years, were put up for auction by All Hallows College in Dublin, Ireland, which is run by the Catholic Church's Vincentian Fathers, CNN quoted the Catholic News Service as saying.
The college did not say why it decided to withdraw the letters from auction, but it said it's working with the Kennedy family to determine their fate.
"Representatives of All Hallows College and the Vincentian Fathers are now exploring with members of Mrs. Kennedy's family how best to preserve and curate this archive for the future," All Hallows College said in a statement.
A young Jacqueline Bouvier met Leonard on a trip to Ireland in 1950, and from that time until his death in 1964, she wrote him more than two dozen letters. She was 21 when her correspondence began with 73-year-old Leonard.
In one letter, she wrote about Kennedy's political ambitions and her relationship with the dashing young man.
"If he ever does ask me to marry him, it will be for rather practical reasons -- because his career is this driving thing with him," she wrote.
A 1952 letter, written the year before the couple wed, showed her understanding of Kennedy's philandering ways.
"He's like my father in a way -- loves the chase and is bored with the conquest -- and once married needs proof he's still attractive, so flirts with other women and resents you," she wrote.
She also wondered about the glitzy life she lived, writing that "maybe I'm just dazzled and picture myself in a glittering world of crowned heads and Men of Destiny -- and not just a sad little housewife."
She added, "That world can be very glamorous from the outside -- but if you're in it -- and you're lonely -- it could be a Hell.
