Ethel Kennedy, matriarch of the famous family, dies at the age of 96

Ethel Kennedy, who lost her husband Robert F. Kennedy and her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, to assassins' bullets and focused her grief on raising her 11 children and a lifetime of public service, died Thursday. She was 96.

Kennedy died as a result of a stroke she suffered last week, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., a grandson, said in a statement posted on X.

“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our great grandmother Ethel Kennedy,” the former congressman said.

Joe Kennedy wrote that his grandmother was “a devout Catholic and a daily communicant.”

“We are comforted to know that she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy,” he wrote.

“In addition to her life’s work for social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her very much.”

Kennedy died about six weeks after her third child, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ended his presidential campaign and outraged his family by supporting former President Donald Trump.

Born Ethel Skakel in Chicago on April 11, 1928, Kennedy's life was marked by tragedy even before Sirhan Sirhan left her a widow in 1968 by shooting her husband as he ran for president.

Kennedy's parents, coal magnate George Skakel and Ann Brannack Skakel, died in a plane crash in 1955.

Kennedy met her future husband in 1945 at a ski resort in Quebec. According to an official biography at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, he was dating her older sister Patricia at the time.

Five years later, “Bobby and Ethel” married and their first child, Kathleen, was born on July 4, 1951.

In 1956, the young couple lived with their growing family in the sprawling Virginia mansion they had purchased from JFK. Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy's public profile rose as chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee.

Like the rest of her family, Kennedy participated in JFK's presidential campaign, and after his election in 1960, her husband was appointed attorney general.

After JFK's assassination, Robert F. Kennedy successfully ran for the United States Senate from New York. Then, with his wife's blessing, he launched his own presidential campaign in 1968.

“Kennedy's wife, always his most ardent supporter, was the most consistent supporter of a race for the White House,” RFK biographer Evan Thomas wrote in “Robert Kennedy: His Life.” “If she had private thoughts about becoming a widow, she didn’t talk about it.”

Six months after RFK's death, Kennedy gave birth to her last child, Rory. At that time, Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and became involved in some of the same causes her husband had championed.

For her efforts, Kennedy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014.

Kennedy never married again, although in the 1970s she was often seen on the arm of singer Andy Williams, a family friend who denied a romantic relationship.

In the years following RFK's assassination, Kennedy's life was marked by further misfortunes.

In 1997 her son Michael died in a skiing accident. Then in 1984, her son David was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room in Palm Beach, Florida.

In 2002, Kennedy's nephew Michael Skakel was tried and convicted for the 1975 murder of his then-neighbor Martha Moxley. He was released in 2013 when a judge admitted that Skakel's former lawyer had failed to adequately defend him.

And in 2019, Kennedy's 22-year-old granddaughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died of a drug overdose.

Joe Kennedy said in his statement that his grandmother also lost her daughter-in-law Mary, her granddaughter Maeve and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie.

Kennedy's private pain over her husband's death was brought back into the public eye in 2021, when a California parole board recommended the release of RFK's killer for the first time.

Then 93, Kennedy objected.

“Our family and our country have suffered an unspeakable loss because of one man’s inhumanity,” Kennedy wrote. “We believe in the gentleness that saved his life, but by curbing his violence he should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.”

Kennedy was supported by six of her surviving children – Joseph P. Kennedy II, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Christopher G. Kennedy, Maxwell T. Kennedy and Rory Kennedy.

But two of Kennedy's other sons, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Douglas Kennedy, said Sirhan served his time and supported his request for parole.

California Governor Gavin Newsom agreed with Ethel Kennedy and blocked Sirhan's release from prison in 2022. And when Sirhan went before the parole board again in March 2023, his request for release was rejected.