Early Life
She was the daughter of John Vernou Bouvier, Jr., and Maude Sergeant Bouvier (the paternal grandparents of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis). Beale's mother was the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer, and her father was a successful attorney who was appointed Major in the Judge Advocate Corps for the United States Army during World War I. He liked to be addressed as Major Bouvier and later invented a faux royal mythos of his Bouvier lineage in the privately printed Our Forebears, which gave his grandchildren the following quote: "The hallmark of aristocracy is responsibility."
Beale enjoyed a privileged upbringing along with her brothers John Vernou Bouvier III, William Sergeant "Bud" Bouvier (1893–1929), who died at a young age from alcoholism, and her red-headed twin sisters Maude Bouvier Davis (1905-1999), mother of writer John H. Davis, and Michelle Bouvier Scott Putman (1905-1987). Mrs. Beale enjoyed photography, theatrical arts, and as a youth considered becoming a surgeon from her interest in physiology.
Read more about this topic: Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale
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