Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Senator Robert F. Kennedy who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died on Thursday, October 10, her family said. She was 96.
“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III posted on X. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week.” “Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-great grandchildren along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the family statement said. Kennedy had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke in her sleep on Oct. 3, her family said.
The Kennedy matriarch, whose children were Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a generation that included President John F. Kennedy. Her family said she had recently enjoyed seeing many of her relatives, before falling ill.
Early life and tragedy
Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven children of coal magnate George Skakel and Ann Brannack Skakel, a devout Roman Catholic. She grew up in a 31-room English country manor house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended Greenwich Academy before graduating from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx in 1945.
She met Robert Kennedy through his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville College in New York. They moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he finished his last year of law school at the University of Virginia. Robert Kennedy became chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee in 1957. He later was appointed attorney general by his brother, the newly elected President Kennedy.
She had supported her husband in his successful 1964 campaign for the US Senate in New York and his subsequent presidential bid. Pregnant with their 11th child when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, her look of shock and horror was captured by photographers in images that remained indelible decades later.
Although Ethel Kennedy was linked to several men after her husband’s death, most notably singer Andy Williams, she never remarried.
Family loss and devotion
A millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950, Ethel Kennedy had endured more death by the age of 40, for the whole world to see, than most would in a lifetime.
She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot on June 5, 1968. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
Her parents were killed in a plane 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 skiing accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash. Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was found guilty of murder in 2002. In 2019, she was grieving again after granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent drug overdose.
“One wonders how much this family must be expected to absorb,” family friend Philip Johnson, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation, told the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s death.
Ethel Kennedy sustained herself through her faith and devotion to family. “She was a devout Catholic and a daily communicant, and we are comforted in knowing she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert. F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie. Please keep our mother in your hearts and prayers,” the family statement said.
A life of politics and activism
She founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after her husband’s death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination.
In 2008, she joined brother-in-law Ted Kennedy and niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Senator Barack Obama for president, likening him to her late husband. She made several trips to the White House during the Obama years, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 and meeting Pope Francis in 2015.
She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps. And she showed up in person, participating in a 2016 demonstration in support of higher pay for farmworkers in Florida and a 2018 hunger strike against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
