1928-2024
Ethel Kennedy Today: Family Matriarch Dies at Age 96
Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a noted human rights activist, died from complications of a stroke on October 10. One week before her death, the 96-year-old suffered a stroke and was hospitalized.
“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,” her family said in a statement. Her daughter Kerry and grandson Joe Kennedy III were among the family members to share the statement on social media.
Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, Ethel dedicated her life to raising their 11 children and advocating for social causes. Just months after his death, the matriarch established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, a nonprofit organization geared toward championing human rights issues. She also co-chaired the Coalition of Gun Control and upheld the family’s legacy of service.
As robust as Ethel’s life was, it was also marked by tragedy. In addition to her husband, Bobby, she lost two of her sons, David and Michael, two granddaughters, as well as two great-grandchildren.
Who Was Ethel Kennedy?
Ethel Kennedy was married to Robert F. Kennedy and later became a human rights activist. She and Robert married in 1950 and had 11 children. Ethel took on the role of party host at the family’s large Virginia home, as Robert forged his political career as U.S. attorney general and later a U.S. senator. Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, Ethel was left to raise their children and continue his progressive political legacy as seen with the establishment of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. She died in October 2024 at age 96.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Ethel Skakel Kennedy
BORN: April 11, 1928
DIED: October 10, 2024
BIRTHPLACE: Chicago, Illinois
SPOUSE: Robert F. Kennedy (1950-1968)
CHILDREN: Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas, and Rory
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries
Early Life
Ethel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicag, to parents George and Ann Skakel. Her father had worked his way up from being a railroad clerk, earning a meager wage, to eventually co-owning the prosperous Great Lakes Coal & Coke Co., a business launched in 1919. As a result, the Skakels became very wealthy and moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, during Ethel’s youth where they settled into a huge country manor house.
Raised with her six siblings, Ethel was a competitive athlete. She went on to attend the elite Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, where she befriended fellow classmate Jean Kennedy. Skakel and Kennedy became fast friends and eventually roommates at Manhattanville. Unbeknownst to young Ethel, the friendship would shape the course of her life.
Marriage to Robert F. Kennedy
In 1945, while still in school, Skakel was introduced to Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of her close friend and classmate Jean Kennedy. Robert, who went by Bobby, was initially romantically interested in Ethel’s sister Pat, but eventually he and Ethel started dating. Ethel helped him with his brother John F. Kennedy’s 1946 congressional campaign.
After she graduated in June 1949, Ethel and Robert’s relationship grew serious. The couple became engaged in February 1950 and were married months later, on June 17, 1950. As newlyweds they moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where they lived until Bobby finished his last year at the University of Virginia Law School. Afterward the family settled in Washington D.C., where Robert began work for the Justice Department.
The couple welcomed their first of 11 children on Independence Day 1951. A daughter, Kathleen arrived shortly after her father began working for the federal government. Next, Ethel and Robert had three sons. Joseph II, named after Robert’s father, was born in September 1952 followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in January 1954 and David in June 1955.
Political Spouse
While Ethel was busy with new motherhood, her husband was managing his brother John’s successful 1952 senatorial campaign. Beginning in 1953, Robert began working as legal counsel for various committees in the U.S. Senate. While her husband climbed the political ladder in Washington, Ethel received the tragic news both her parents were killed in a 1955 private plane crash. But Ethel, known for her bubbly and vivacious spirit, publicly showed little of her grief. Instead, she poured herself into taking care of her growing family—and helping her husband and in-laws run their political campaigns.
After the 1956 Democratic National Convention, Robert and Ethel bought Hickory Hill—a mansion in McLean, Virginia—from Robert’s brother John to help house their growing family. Between September 1956 and September 1959, Ethel and Robert had three more kids: Courtney, Michael, and Mary “Kerry” Kennedy. The Kennedys welcomed plenty of guests to their 13-bedroom manor, too. Parties and gatherings at Hickory Hill were numerous, legendary, and unbound under Ethel’s energetic eye.
With a growing devotion to family politics, Ethel was among the Kennedys who campaigned for John as he ran for U.S. president. In 1960, John won the election and appointed Robert as U.S. attorney general. Ethel and Robert had their eighth child, Christopher, in July 1963. Months later, in November, the Kennedy family mourned JFK’s shocking death.
With his brother no longer in the White House, Robert decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 1964. Ethel was by her husband’s side during his successful campaign to represent New York. She was a likable presence, and her personality generally won over the public. Known for her no-nonsense, candid demeanor, she was also adept at handling the press. Despite reputed behind-the-scene family squabbles, she embraced her identity as a Kennedy and her lighthearted humor was a good match for the more serious Robert.
Robert’s new post didn’t slow his and Ethel’s childbearing. Matthew “Max” and Douglas, their ninth and 10th children, were born in January 1965 and March 1967, respectively.
Family Tragedies and Activism
Like his late brother, Robert decided to enter the presidential race. Determined to win the 1968 election, Ethel and the rest of the Kennedy family geared up for the campaign trail. Ethel, three months pregnant with their 11th child, was again by Robert’s side. But immediately after he won the California Democratic primary, Robert was shot repeatedly in Los Angeles. He died the next day, June 6, 1968. Sirhan Sirhan was convicted for Robert’s murder the next year.
Ethel and Robert’s last child, Rory, was born in December 1968, six months after her father’s murder. Ethel came to focus much of her time and energy on various social causes, most notably founding the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (today known as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights) and working with the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Project in Brooklyn.
Ethel never remarried following RFK’s assassination. Her deep friendship with singer Andy Williams, who began to escort her to events after her husband’s death, was scrutinized over time by media outlets. Many speculated about Williams’ own rocky marriage and believed he was having an affair with Ethel. Williams and his wife later divorced, and he remarried another woman. He and Ethel remained platonic friends, which Williams had always maintained was the extent of their relationship. Despite rumors of other relationships with footballer Frank Gifford and politician Hugh Carey, Ethel refused to remarry, citing her Catholic faith.
In the 1980s and 1990s, she endured more personal misfortune. In 1984, her son David was found in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel room, where he fatally overdosed on drugs. Her grief was compounded in 1997 when another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident.
Then in 2002, her 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 decreed that he hadn’t received an adequate defense. Five years later, his conviction was overturned, and in 2020, murder charges against Skakel were dropped.
At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Rory Kennedy released a documentary on her mother’s life entitled Ethel. The movie then found a home at HBO. In November 2014, Ethel was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in recognition of “advancing the cause of social justice, human rights, environmental protection, and poverty reduction.”
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