During her time at the White House, Onassis hoped to protect her children from media scrutiny. One effort involved creating an on-location school so the children could learn without being bothered by the press, according to History. Onassis took over the third-floor solarium and re-designed it as a kindergarten. Her children as well as some of the staff’s progeny learned their ABCs and more there. Eventually, the school housed about 10 students, several teachers, and class pets, including some rabbits and guinea pigs.

“It was great, just so fun,” said Avery Hatcher, a son of Andrew Hatcher, a one-time associate press secretary of President Kennedy, to People magazine. “A lot of times [Jackie Kennedy] would walk Caroline to the classroom,” he also noted. Other notable figures guests stopped by, too, such as cellist Pablo Casales and folk singer Pete Seeger. “At the little performances Mrs. Kennedy was kind,” Hatcher commented. “She would share with all the students, [she would say] ‘Oh, how are you doing Maria, Avery, Tommy.'”

The school ended after Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Onassis would remarry the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis (see photo above) five years later, according to the Encyclopedia of World Biography. When he died in 1975, she made a home in New York and spent about two decades as a book editor. Onassis died in 1994 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to Kennedy. She was 64.