Showing posts with label jackie o. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jackie o. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Lessons in Nobility - A Real Downton Abbey Story

Now Available on Amazon 


Who wouldn’t want a fairy godmother? They would lavish you with gifts, of course, but more importantly they would teach you how to be a better person by bringing out your inner nobility. Lessons in Nobility is about how a very real fairy godmother changed the author’s life from a self-destructive one to a life of noble aspirations and wonderful achievements. 

While still a teenager, Robert Westover was introduced to his “fairy godmother” who, like the plot of so many Russian novels, was a delightfully eccentric countess. Countess Olga de Chravpovitsky was raised in the court of Tsar Nicholas II. She was a playmate of the legendary Grand Duchess Anastasia and at one point even encountered the mysterious Siberian monk, Rasputin. 

Despite the horrors of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Olga’s family managed to escape. Exiled in America, she became a relative (through marriage) to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and helped influence the former First Lady’s fascination with imperial Russia—a fact known by few. But all these things were just the baubles of a life of any well-born person with great connections. What made Olga special was the nobility she expressed in nearly everything she did—and how she taught it to Robert. 

So how did a middle class kid from LA become the “honorary godson” to such a regal and highborn woman? That will be for the reader to decide. Some will see it as pure luck while others will see it as fate. But, no matter the conclusion, the story of how Robert was taught to be noble is one that everyone can gain from. 

The reader will walk away with a better understanding of what being noble is and how they can apply these lessons in their own lives. Sometimes dramatic and often moving, Lessons in Nobility has a timeless appeal. 

Never before Published Insight into Jackie Kennedy’s Life 
As an exciting addition to the book, the author has included an article he wrote about the relationship between Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Hugh D. “Yusha” Auchincloss III, Olga's newphew. Step brother and sister, Yusha and Jackie shared a love that lasted their entire lives. 

Mr. Westover had unique access to Yusha Auchincloss and interviewed him on several occasions at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island. The interviews, in the twilight of Mr. Auchincloss' life, reveal just how much love he and Jackie had for each other. 

Robert Hudson Westover is a professional writer of articles, humorous columns, and was the subject of many national news stories including ABC World News Tonight (2000), The New York Times (1998/2003) and the BBC (1998/2000). His "Lord Westover" blog was nominated to the Washington Post's "Best Blog Award" by its readers and mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Westover is co-author of the well-received “S.S. United States – Fastest Ship in the World” (Turner). He and his husband, Gay rights activist Tom Fulton, live in Virginia.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

JFK's Summer White House - A Visit to the Fountainhead of Camelot





Hammersmith Farm was JFK's Summer White House. Jackie O spent much of her childhood on the Auchincloss family estate and a young Jack Kennedy courted her there. Jack and Jackie had their wedding reception at Hammersmith Farm and the pictures they took that beautiful September day have become iconic symbols of an age of elegance and grace so unfamiliar now.   
My honorary uncle, Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss, was Jackie O's older stepbrother and is the nephew of my Godmother, the Countess Olga C. Morgan. Although my relationship to the patriarch of the Auchincloss family is an honorary one, my family's history with the Countess goes back to the 1940s when, as a child, my father lived just down the street from Olga Morgan in Laguna Beach, California.
Robert Hudson Westover,
Washington, DC