Ethel Kennedy had endured extra demise by the age of 40, for the entire world to see, than most would in a lifetime.
WASHINGTON — Ethel Kennedy, the spouse of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who raised their 11 kids after he was assassinated and remained devoted to social causes and the household’s legacy for many years thereafter, died on Thursday, her household stated. She was 96.
Kennedy had been hospitalized after struggling a stroke in her sleep on Oct. 3, her household stated.
“It’s with our hearts full of affection that we announce the passing of our superb grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III posted on X. “She died this morning from problems associated to a stroke suffered final week.”
“Together with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mom leaves behind 9 kids, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-great grandchildren together with quite a few nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the household assertion stated.
The Kennedy matriarch, whose kids have been Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of many final remaining members of a era that included President John F. Kennedy. Her household stated she had just lately loved seeing a lot of her family, earlier than falling unwell.
A millionaire’s daughter who married the longer term senator and lawyer basic in 1950, Ethel Kennedy had endured extra demise by the age of 40, for the entire world to see, than most would in a lifetime.
She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s facet when he was fatally shot within the kitchen of the Ambassador Resort in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, simply after successful the Democratic presidential main in California. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas lower than 5 years earlier.
Her mother and father have been killed in a airplane crash in 1955, and her brother died in a 1966 crash. Her son David Kennedy later died of a drug overdose, son Michael Kennedy in a snowboarding accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a airplane crash. One other nephew, Michael Skakel, was discovered responsible of homicide in 2002, though a decide in 2013 ordered a brand new trial and the Connecticut Supreme Court docket vacated his conviction in 2018.
In 2019, she was grieving once more after granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an obvious drug overdose.
“One wonders how a lot this household should be anticipated to soak up,” household buddy Philip Johnson, founding father of the Robert F. Kennedy Basis, instructed the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s demise.
Ethel Kennedy sustained herself by her religion and devotion to household.
“She was a religious Catholic and a day by day communicant, and we’re comforted in understanding she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert. F. Kennedy; her kids David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saorise and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie. Please hold our mom in your hearts and prayers,” the household assertion stated.
Ethel’s mother-in-law, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, initially fearful about how she would deal with a lot tragedy.
“I knew how tough it was going to be for her to lift that massive household with out the guiding position and affect that Bobby would have supplied,” Rose recalled in her memoir, “Occasions to Keep in mind.” “And, in fact, she realized this too, absolutely and keenly. But she didn’t give approach.”
She based the Robert F. Kennedy Heart for Justice and Human Rights quickly after husband’s demise and advocated for causes together with gun management and human rights. She hardly ever spoke about her husband’s assassination. When her filmmaker daughter, Rory, introduced it up within the 2012 HBO documentary, “Ethel,” she could not share her grief.
“Once we misplaced Daddy …” she started, then teared up and requested that her youngest daughter “speak about one thing else.”
In 2008, she joined brother-in-law Ted Kennedy and niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, likening him to her late husband. She made a number of journeys to the White Home throughout the Obama years, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 and assembly Pope Francis in 2015.
A lot of her progeny turned well-known. Daughter Kathleen turned lieutenant governor of Maryland; Joseph represented Massachusetts in Congress; Courtney married Paul Hill, who had been wrongfully convicted of an IRA bombing; Kerry turned a human rights activist and president of the RFK heart; Christopher ran for governor of Illinois; Max served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and Douglas reported for Fox Information Channel.
Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., additionally turned a nationwide determine, though finally not as a liberal within the household custom. First often called an environmental lawyer, he advanced right into a conspiracy theorist who unfold false theories about vaccines. He ran for president as an unbiased after briefly difficult President Joe Biden, and his identify remained on ballots in a number of states after he suspended his marketing campaign and endorsed Donald Trump.
Ethel Kennedy didn’t remark publicly on her son’s actions, though a number of different members of the family denounced him.
A long time earlier, she appeared to thrive on her in-laws’ rising energy. She was an enthusiastic backer of JFK’s 1960 run and throughout the Kennedy administration hosted among the period’s most well-attended events at their Hickory Hill property in McLean, Virginia, together with one the place historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was pushed absolutely clothed into the swimming pool. Within the Kennedy spirit, she additionally was often called an avid and extremely aggressive tennis participant and a compulsive planner.
“Petite and peppy Ethel, who doesn’t look one bit the outdoorsy sort, considers outside exercise so essential for the kids that she has organized her busy Cupboard-wife schedule so she will personally take them on two day by day outings,” The Washington Publish reported in 1962.
In February of that 12 months, she accompanied her husband on a round-the-world goodwill tour, stopping in Japan, Hong Kong, Italy and different international locations. She stated it was essential for Individuals to fulfill odd individuals abroad.
“Folks have a definite liking for Individuals,” she instructed the Publish. “However the Communists have been so vocal, it was a shock for some Asians to listen to America’s viewpoint. It’s good for Individuals to journey and get our viewpoint throughout.”
Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven kids of coal magnate George Skakel and Ann Brannack Skakel, a religious Roman Catholic. She grew up in a 31-room English nation manor home in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended Greenwich Academy earlier than graduating from the Convent of the Sacred Coronary heart within the Bronx in 1945.
She met Robert Kennedy by his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville School in New York. They moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, the place he completed his final 12 months of legislation college on the College of Virginia, after which in 1957, they purchased Hickory Hill from by John and Jacqueline Kennedy, who had purchased it in 1953.
Robert Kennedy turned chief counsel to the Senate Choose Committee in 1957. He later was appointed lawyer basic by his brother, the newly elected President Kennedy.
She had supported her husband in his profitable 1964 marketing campaign for the U.S. Senate in New York and his subsequent presidential bid. Pregnant with their eleventh little one when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, her look of shock and horror was captured by photographers in pictures that remained indelible many years later.
The assassination traumatized the household, particularly son David Kennedy, who watched the information in a lodge room. He was simply days earlier than his thirteenth birthday and by no means recovered, fighting habit issues for years and overdosing in 1984.
In 2021, she stated Sirhan Sirhan shouldn’t be launched from jail, a view not shared by some others in her household. Two years later, a California panel denied him parole.
Though Ethel Kennedy was linked to a number of males after her husband’s demise, most notably singer Andy Williams, she by no means remarried.
In April 2008, Ethel Kennedy visited Indianapolis on the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A monument there commemorated King’s demise and the speech her husband had provided that night time in 1968, which was credited with averting rioting within the metropolis.
“Of all of the Kennedy girls, she was the one I’d find yourself admiring probably the most,” Harry Belafonte would write of her. “She wasn’t playacting. She checked out you and instantly received what you have been about. Usually within the coming years, when Bobby was balking at one thing we wished him to do for the motion, I’d take my case to Ethel. ‘Now we have to speak to him,’ she’d say, and she or he would.”
Ethel Kennedy joined President Obama and former President Invoice Clinton — every held one in every of her fingers — as they climbed stairs to put a wreath at President Kennedy’s gravesite throughout a November 2013 observance of the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s demise.
The nonprofit heart she based stays devoted to advancing human rights by litigation, advocacy, schooling and inspiration, giving annual awards to journalists, authors and others who’ve made important contributions to human rights.
She additionally was energetic within the Coalition of Gun Management, Particular Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps. And he or she confirmed up in individual, taking part in a 2016 demonstration in assist of upper pay for farmworkers in Florida and a 2018 starvation strike in opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies.
Hickory Hill was offered in 2009 for $8.25 million, and Ethel Kennedy divided her time between properties in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Seashore, Florida.
