Her husband and brother-in-law were shot, her parents had an accident, two sons were killed: Ethel Kennedy had to accept numerous blows of fate. She has now died at the age of 96.
Ethel Kennedy is dead. The widow of former US Attorney General and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot in 1968, died after a stroke, her family said. Ethel Kennedy was 96 years old. “It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our wonderful grandmother,” wrote Joe Kennedy III. on X
Eleven children
Ethel raised their eleven children after her husband was shot on June 5, 1968, shortly after his victory in the Democratic presidential primary in California. Her brother-in-law, then US President John F. Kennedy, had also been assassinated less than five years earlier.
Many Strokes of fate
Ethel Kennedy also had to accept many strokes of fate. Her parents died in a plane crash in 1955, and her brother died in an accident in 1966. Her son David Kennedy died of a drug overdose, son Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash. Her granddaughters Saorise and Maeve and two great-grandchildren also died before Ethel Kennedy.
Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel in Chicago on April 11, 1928, the sixth of seven children of coal magnate George Skakel and his wife Ann Brannack Skakel, a devout Catholic.
She grew up in a 31-room English country house in Connecticut. Robert Kennedy met her through his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville College in New York. She was pregnant with her eleventh child when Kennedy was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
For stricter gun laws
Among other things, Ethel Kennedy campaigned for human rights and stricter gun laws in the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, which she founded. Her voice still had weight in the Democratic Party. In 2008, she endorsed Barack Obama and compared him to her late husband.
The Kennedys were the best-known Democratic political dynasty in the USA for decades. Several of Ethel's children and other relatives also became politically active. Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently broke with the liberal family tradition. He ran as an independent candidate before the upcoming election in November, but then threw his support behind Republican Donald Trump.
