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Ethel Kennedy, a matriarch of America’s most celebrated political family who carried on her husband Robert F. Kennedy’s fight for civil justice after witnessing his assassination on the night he won the 1968 Califonia Democratic presidential primary, has died at the age of 96.
“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy”, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, her grandson, announced Thursday. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week.”
The mother of seven sons and four daughters — including one she was pregnant with when her husband was killed — Ethel Kennedy, who never remarried, raised her children to live up to the Kennedy creed touted by her murdered brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, that “to those who are given much much will be required.”
“For anyone to achieve something, he must have to show a little courage. You’re only on this earth once. You must give it all you’ve got”, she said following her husband’s 1968 assassination.
When President Barack Obama presented Ethel Kennedy with the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2014, the nation’s highest civilian honor, he said Kennedy’s “love of family is matched only by her devotion to her nation.”
“She’s an emblem of enduring faith and enduring hope even in the face of unimaginable loss and unimaginable grief”, Obama said during the White House ceremony. “And she has touched the lives of countless people around the world with her generosity and grace.”
Kenedy’s death came after she was hospitalized on Oct. 8, 2024, when she suffered a stroke in her sleep, according to her family.
Born Ethel Schake in Chicago in 1928, her life was marked by a tireless dedication to public service, resilience, and tragedy.
Though she was born in Illinois, she and the rest of the Skakel family relocated to New England during her childhood years as her father’s energy business boomed.
