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Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former Attorney General and New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, has died. A political force unto herself, the sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy and mother of 11 children was 96.
Her daughter Kerry Kennedy announced the news on social media.
Having survived her husband by 56 years, the family matriarch went on to form the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights in the months following the then presidential candidate’s assassination in 1968. Respected and beloved by generations of Americans, and many others around the world, Ethel Kennedy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014.
“You don’t mess with Ethel,” President Obama noted at the White House ceremony to laughter, adding on a more serious note that Kennedy’s “love of family is matched only by her devotion to her nation.”
The family revealed on October 8 that Ethel Kennedy had suffered a stroke in her sleep on October 3 at her Cape Cod home and had been taken to a hospital. Along with grandson and ex-Congressman Joe Kennedy III.
Born on April 11, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation co-founder and coal mogul George Skakel met the third eldest son of Joe and Rose Kennedy on a family skiing trip in Canada in 1945 via her college roommate Jean Kennedy. At the time, Bobby, as his family and friends called RFK, was dating Ethel’s sister Patricia.
Soon after the two met, RFK was dating Ethel.
While the couple waited five years to get engaged, they were married in less than six months on June 17, 1950 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Not long after that, as his older brother Jack moved into national politics, Bobby followed and moved his burgeoning family to Washington DC.
An active participant in JFK’s successful 1960 bid for the White House, Bobby’s 1964 Senator run, as well as other family campaigns, Ethel was an strong advocate for her her husband seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. More than three months pregnant at the time Ethel was not with RFK celebrating his victory in the California primary on June 5, 1968 at the now demolished Ambassador Hotel in LA when her husband was fatally shot. However, she was by his side in the hospital when the 42-year old Senator died over a day later from his bullet wounds.
The Kennedy family has been portrayed in countless films, TV series and theatre performances, and Ethel herself appeared as herself in a 1982 episode of Cheers. RFK and Ethel’s youngest daughter documentarian Rory Kennedy turned the camera on her mother and her life in the 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiering Ethel.
Ethel aired later that year on HBO.
Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy had 11 children, with sons David and Michael passing away in 1984 and 1997, respectively. Along with Emmy winning filmmaker Rory, Ethel Kennedy is survived by her other offspring former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend, Joseph Patrick Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy Hill, Mary Kerry Kennedy, Christopher George Kennedy, Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, and Douglas Harriman Kennedy, as well their children and grandchildren.
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