by Elka Worner
When Jacqueline Miller Bachar passed away in July 2021, her son Greg found his mother had left behind an unpublished literary legacy to help him through his mourning. What began as a personal journey through boxes of her articles, floppy disks, and yellowing drafts soon became something more profound: a labor of love, and ultimately, a resurrection.
“I was not fully aware of the scope of my mom’s writing about the community until she passed away,” Greg Bachar said. “It’s like being in her mind. It gives her work a second life.”
Over the past four years, Greg has compiled and published four volumes of Jacqueline’s work. The most recent, The Spirit of Achievement, is a collection of her articles, essays, and speeches—many originally published in the now-defunct Palos Verdes Style magazine, where Jacqueline served as both features writer and editor from 1995 to 1999. The book is vibrant, far-reaching, and full of intellectual flair.
To those who knew Jacqueline, or Jackie as friends called her, she was more than a writer—she was a Renaissance woman, a mother, hostess, cultural anthropologist, art therapist, chocolatier, public speaker, and beloved community connector.
“She was an excellent writer, and she knew everyone. People would pitch themselves to be featured,” former PV Style publisher Lili Miura said.
Jacqueline earned a BA in Psychology from Ramapo College in New Jersey, followed by an MA in Art Psychotherapy from Goddard University in Vermont. Later, she completed pre-doctoral studies in Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Leuven in Belgium—a place that would become one of her homes.
From the time the Bachar family moved to Palos Verdes in 1980, Jacqueline embedded herself in the community. Her husband, Paul, worked as an executive for Hughes Aircraft and was later assigned to Brussels, Belgium. She led women’s groups, interviewed authors for her radio show, researched Belgian chocolate and authored over 40 features spotlighting artists, philanthropists, socialites, and public figures—often with a sensitive, lyrical touch. In a 1997 article about jazz legend David Benoit, she wrote, “If creativity is a result of genes or environment, Palos Verdes resident David Benoit has all his ivories covered. As a boy, he literally slept with his piano.”
She profiled icons like Buddy Ebsen—better known as Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies—in a 1995 article that illuminated his second act as a painter in Palos Verdes. “He is moved by color,“perhaps,” he says, because his “life has been colorful,” she wrote.She noted how Ebsen nearly died from the aluminum powder in his makeup while playing the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
“The quixotic moments of fate are not lost on him,” she wrote. “Although he underplays the seriousness of the situation, he was, in fact, near death from inhaling the toxic substance.”
These were not puff pieces. They were profiles of humanity, rich with empathy and understanding.
Her column, “The Spirit of Achievement,” ran as a double-spread feature and became a calling card of the magazine. With professional photography and polished prose, it celebrated community builders like Reverend Marlene Laughlin of the Wayfarers Chapel, State Senator Betty Karnette, and De De Hicks, Executive Director of the Volunteer Center. Jacqueline had a gift for making achievement feel deeply personal and profoundly relatable.
The posthumous project
After Jacqueline’s death, Greg faced the daunting task of piecing together his mother’s prolific output in the days before digital archiving. “I had no idea where the articles were,” he said. “It was the late ’90s—before the internet really caught up with print.” He scoured floppy disks, and reached out to the Palos Verdes Library archivist. Some of her work he found in cardboard boxes. Others appeared like buried treasure in outdated formats he had to scan into PDFs.
“It was an unfinished endeavor I wanted to complete for her,” he said. “There was a treasure trove of stuff here—the people she interviewed, some of them still living in the South Bay.”
Greg gathered her writings into four books, including a collection of short stories, an art therapy book, a memoir journal, and The Spirit of Achievement. He also republished two books she wrote while living in Palos Verdes. The process, he admits, was therapeutic. “It’s helped me with my grief,” he said. “It was like having a conversation with her.”
A creative force with many lives
In Palm Desert, where she and her husband Paul relocated after his retirement, she launched a gourmet chocolate company called Under Chocolate Skies, inspired by her time researching chocolate in Belgium and Paris. She studied at the Ecole de Gastronomie Francaise, Ritz-Escoffier in Paris and attended culinary classes in Europe, channeling her training into artisanal confections sold at local shops and food festivals.
Jacqueline also hosted “The Jacqueline Bachar Show” on a Palm Springs radio station. She interviewed literary heavyweights like Joseph Wambaugh, Paul Theroux, and Anne Rice. “She had no radio experience when she conducted her first interview,” Greg recalled. “I don’t know where that came from. But she was fearless.”
Her resume also included work as a registered art therapist, founder of Artisans International—a design consultancy serving clients as varied as the L.A. Design Center and a hotel in Osaka, Japan—and a speaker at the United Nations, where she spoke on Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1995.
A private life, publicly lived
Jacqueline was a devoted wife and mother who never lost sight of the home front. She was married to Paul for 45 years before his passing in 2007. They traveled the world—from France and Belgium to their final voyage aboard the Queen Mary 2. The couple’s shared passion for art, travel, and culture was a foundation that Greg said defined his childhood.
“There were women’s organization meetings at our house,” he said. “It was an illustration of the work my mom was doing in the community.”
Her influence, Greg admits, was so omnipresent it sometimes went unnoticed. “My parents were pretty dynamic people,” he said. “They did a lot. That was just my normal.”
“The work in this volume serves as evidence supporting the notion that consistently engaging with one’s creative interests is not an endeavor of simply finding time,” he writes in the foreword to The Spirit of Achievement, “but life itself.”
Thanks to her son’s love, persistence, and devotion, her words continue to inspire.
Jacqueline Miller Bachar’s books are available on Amazon.
