Ethel Kennedy

Ethel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to businessman George Skakel and Ann Brannack.^[1] She was the sixth of seven children, with a younger sister named Ann and five elder siblings: Georgeann, James, George Jr., Rushton, and Patricia.^[2]

Her father George was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, which later became a division of SGLCarbon.^[3] He was of Dutch descent and a Protestant^[4][5][6] while Ann was of Irish ancestry and practiced the Catholic faith. Their children were raised Catholic, and Ethel, a devout Catholic herself, attended mass regularly throughout her life.^[7][8] On October 3, 1955, Ethel's parents were both killed in a plane crash in Union City, Oklahoma.^[9]

Ethel and her siblings were raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. Ethel attended the all-girls Greenwich Academy, and graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx in 1945.^[10] In September 1945, Ethel began her college education at Manhattanville College, where she was a classmate of her future sister-in-law Jean Kennedy.^[11] She received a bachelor's degree from Manhattanville in 1949.^[12]

Ethel first met Jean's brother Robert F. Kennedy during a ski trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec in December 1945. During that trip, Robert began dating Ethel's older sister Patricia, but after that relationship ended, he began to date Ethel. She campaigned for Robert's older brother John F. Kennedy in John's 1946 campaign for Congress in Massachusetts' 11th congressional district, and wrote her college thesis on his book Why England Slept.^[10]

 

Robert Kennedy and Ethel Skakel became engaged in February 1950 and were married on June 17, 1950, in a Catholic ceremony at the St. Mary Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.^[13] The Boston Globe noted that the marriage "unites two large fortunes".^[14]

After Robert graduated from law school at the University of Virginia, the family settled in the Washington, D.C. area, and Robert went to work for the Justice Department.^[10] In 1952, Ethel and Robert moved into a rooming house in Boston, Massachusetts,^[15] and she helped contribute to her brother-in-law John's Senate campaign by organizing "tea parties" for potential voters.^[16]

In 1956, the Kennedys purchased Hickory Hill from Robert's brother John and his wife, Jacqueline.^[17] The estate was situated on six acres in McLean, Virginia, (west of Washington, D.C.) with a 13-bedroom mansion.^[10] Robert and Ethel held many gatherings at their home and were known for their impressive and eclectic guest lists.^[18] Ethel sold Hickory Hill for $8.25 million in December 2009.^[19][20] The couple also owned a home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.^[21]

In 1960, Ethel's brother-in-law John F. Kennedy won the presidential election, at which time he appointed Robert to the post of attorney general.^[10] In 1962, President Kennedy assigned Ethel and Robert to tour 14 countries on a 28-day goodwill trip. Though the trip was said to be informal, the host countries viewed Robert and Ethel as stand-ins for the President and the First Lady.^[22]

On November 22, 1963, Ethel first learned of John's assassination from her husband. She had answered the phone, identified the caller as Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director J. Edgar Hoover, and handed the phone to Robert, who then informed her of the shooting. Hoover had never called the Attorney General's home before.^[23]

In 1964, Ethel supported her husband while he campaigned for and won a seat in the United States Senate, representing New York.^[10] During the campaign, Robert was accused of "carpetbagging", and Ethel made light of the criticism by suggesting the slogan, "There is only so much you can do for Massachusetts."^[24]

She urged her husband to enter the Democratic primary for the 1968 presidential election. Biographer Evan Thomas portrayed her as Robert's "most consistent advocate of a race for the White House".^[25]

 

Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; he died the following day at the age of 42. Ethel was present at the scene and was three months pregnant at the time. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning. Ethel sent Johnson a handwritten note on June 19, thanking him and his wife, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, for the help they had given her and the Kennedy family.^[26] After her husband's assassination, Ethel publicly stated that she would never marry again, wanting to focus on "furthering his work and legacy".^[27] For a time, she was escorted to dinners, parties, and the theater by singer and family friend Andy Williams.^[28]

Robert and Ethel Kennedy had 11 children during their 18-year marriage: Kathleen, Joseph, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Maxwell, Douglas, and Rory,^[27] who was born after her father was assassinated.^[29] Kathleen served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003,^[30] Joseph represented Massachusetts's 8th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1999,^[31] and Robert Jr. ran for president in the 2024 United States presidential election.^{[32][33][34][35]} Her grandson, Joseph Kennedy III, also served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts's 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021. She outlived two of her sons, David and Michael, who respectively died from a 1984 drug overdose and a 1997 skiing accident.^[10]

Ethel Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (now known as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights)^[36] in 1968.^[37] In February 2001, Kennedy visited Rodolfo Montiel and another peasant activist at their jail in Iguala, presenting Rodolfo with the Chico Mendes Award on behalf of American environmental group the Sierra Club.^[38] In March 2016, Kennedy was among hundreds who marched near the home of Wendy's chairman Nelson Peltz in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an effort by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm workers' group, to convince the company to pay an additional one cent per pound of tomatoes to increase the wages of field workers.^[39] Kennedy's daughter Kerry was president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, according to the Fund's 2022 annual report.^[40]

 

During the late 1970s, with a renewed commitment to public service, Kennedy focused much of her time and energy on various social causes, including the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Project.^[41] In 1992, Kennedy and her son Michael made a cameo appearance on the NBC sitcom Cheers in Boston.^[42]

During the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama.^[43] She publicly supported and held fundraisers at Hickory Hill for numerous politicians that included Virginia gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran.^[44] Kennedy hosted a $6-million fundraising dinner for Obama at Hickory Hill in June 2008. The $28,500-a-plate dinner was headlined by former Democratic presidential candidate and DNC chairman Howard Dean.^[45]

In 2012, Kennedy appeared in a documentary about her life, directed by her youngest child, daughter Rory. The documentary, entitled Ethel, covers Kennedy's early political involvement, her life with Robert F. Kennedy, and the years following his death when she raised eleven children on her own. It features interviews with Ethel and her children interspersed with family videos and archival photos.^[46]

 

In her later years, Kennedy resided at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts and in Palm Beach, Florida.^[47][48] She died in Boston on October 10, 2024, at the age of 96,^[49] after being hospitalized for a stroke she had the week prior.^[50] Her funeral was held on October 14 at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts.^[51] On October 16, a memorial service was held at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., with eulogies given by President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.^[52] She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery alongside her husband, Robert.^[53]

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan honored Kennedy with the Robert F. Kennedy medal in the White House Rose Garden.^[54] In 2014, a bridge over the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Ethel Kennedy Bridge in her honor, in recognition of her advocacy for environmentalism and social causes in the District of Columbia.^[55] Also in 2014, Kennedy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama for her dedication to "advancing the cause of social justice, human rights, environmental protection, and poverty reduction by creating countless ripples of hope to effect change around the world".^[56][57]

Ellen Parker portrays Kennedy in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy, set during the Kennedy presidency.^[58] Marnie McPhail portrays Kennedy in the 2002 television film RFK.^[59] Kristin Booth portrays Kennedy in the 2011 miniseries The Kennedys, set during the Kennedy presidency,^[60] and its 2017 sequel The Kennedys: After Camelot.^[61]

• Oppenheimer, Jerry (1994). The Other Mrs. Kennedy : An Intimate and Revealing Look at the Hidden Life of Ethel Skakel Kennedy. St. Martin's Paperbacks. ISBN 9780312110406.
• Schlesinger, Arthur Meier Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, ISBN 0-618-21928-5
• Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot. Warner Books: 2000. ISBN 0-446-52426-3

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ethel Kennedy.

• Ethel Kennedy at IMDb
• American Experience: RFK People & Events Archived March 18, 2017, at the Wayback Machine—From PBS
• The Documentary Film – Ethel (2012)
• Appearances on C-SPAN