Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

In the small neighborhood church where she regularly attended Mass, simple prayers were said Sunday for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Her name was included in the list of parishioners who had passed away during the week, fitting tribute to the privacy one of the world's best known women almost constantly sought. "She was a symbol for the world," said the Right Rev. George F. Bardes as he stood on the sidewalk after Mass at the Church of St.

People no longer came up to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on the street and asked impertinent questions, said society columnist Liz Smith last Thursday night. And if they did, said Smith, Jackie "just smiled and went on her way." She had finally become what she had perhaps always wanted to be: a famous, private person. She had managed it by learning to handle people and the press like no one else ever has--silently.

For all these years, she pursued an utterly private life. But Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis chose to be laid to rest at one of America's most hallowed tourist attractions: the hauntingly serene Arlington National Cemetery. On Monday, in a private ceremony, the former First Lady will be buried alongside her first husband, President John F. Kennedy, among the 612 acres of green knolls that overlook the capital and serve as the final resting place for more than 225,000 U.S.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died Thursday. Outside her Fifth Avenue apartment strangers gathered, strewed rose petals, lit candles. She was 64 and she had been a role model for thousands of women. She was loved by people she didn't know and who didn't know her. What they responded to was the image she presented. She was smart, brave, complicated and, one suspects, she understood that it was all--politics and fashion, Camelot and the pill-box hat--about image.

Details of services for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: * Viewing: Private, at her apartment at 1040 5th Ave. * Funeral: Private, 10 a.m. Monday, at St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church, Park Avenue and East 84th Street. * Burial: Private, Monday afternoon, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Expressions of condolence: Mrs. Onassis' spokeswoman, Nancy Tuckerman, said people may contribute to their favorite charities.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is dead, and the grief that Americans feel is not just a grief for her and her family. What she stood for is something Americans obscurely yearn for. The word for it--more than taste or even grace--is dignity. No American old enough to remember the day will ever forget her ravaged nobility at the funeral of her husband, the slain President John F. Kennedy. Virtually the entire nation saw her whisper to her 3-year-old son that the moment had come for him to salute.

To the students at the only school in the Los Angeles Unified School District to bear the name of John F. Kennedy, the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was another sad page in the history books. Just don't ask them to write it. At John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, student reaction to the former First Lady's death on Thursday was long on inaccuracies and short on knowledge, although many expressed the Generation X version of sadness.

Americans mourned the loss of a First Lady and the loss of an era Friday as the family of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis prepared a small and private funeral far different from the grand and wrenching public ceremonies that she once helped fashion for a slain husband and President. Though the ceremonies will differ greatly, Mrs. Onassis, who died of cancer Thursday night at the age of 64, will be buried Monday afternoon alongside President John F.

"Even in the face of impossible tragedy, she carried the grief of her family and our entire nation with a calm power that somehow reassured all of us who mourned. We hope that Mrs. Onassis' children, John and Caroline, and her grandchildren find solace in the extraordinary contributions she made to our country.' --excerpt from President Clinton's comments * "In times of hope, she captured our hearts. In tragedy, her courage helped salve a nation's grief.

She was, in life, the most private of citizens, the most public of American icons. And so it was in death that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was doubly mourned on Thursday--both as the complex woman beloved by family and friends and as the womanly ideal revered by a generation of Americans. "In times of hope, she captured our hearts," said Lady Bird Johnson, the former First Lady, from her home in Stonewall, Tex. "In tragedy, her courage helped salve a nation's grief.