The bible Jacqueline Kennedy gripped while helping the nation heal following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination will hit the auction block this month.
Hours after JFK was fatally shot on Nov. 22, 1963, the shaken widow paged through the leather-bound tome and found the words to read at her husband’s funeral.
Heritage Auction
“Bible we used the night Jack died to choose Ecclesiastes to be read at his funeral. JBK 1963,” Kennedy wrote on its bookplate bearing the presidential seal.
Curtis Lindner, director of Americana at the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, said the bible had previously been gifted to the caretaker of Cardinal Richard Cushing, archbishop of Boston, who was a close friend of the Kennedys.
Despite its cover being emblazoned with the date of JFK’s Inauguration, the holy book is not the family bible that the late president used to be sworn into office, Lindner said.
He speculated a Camelot devotee might fork over as much as $50,000 for the relic during the live auction on April 26.
“We’ve had many Kennedy artifacts go well past that,” he said, adding that rocking chairs owned by the former president have sold for over $400,000.
The bible “is a sad piece of history but a piece of history nonetheless,” he said.
Along with the bible, which already has reached $19,375 in bidding, Heritage also is auctioning off heart-wrenching letters the former First Lady wrote to Cushing following her husband’s death along with Kennedy memorabilia including golf balls and Christmas cards.