Human rights activist Ethel Kennedy – the widow of assassinated senator Robert F. Kennedy – has died.
The 96-year-old died from “complications related to a stroke” suffered last week, according to her family.
In a statement, they said: “It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy.
“Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly.”
Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy attend the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House in 1966 – two years before he was killed.
Pic: Glasshouse Images/Shutterstock
The Kennedy matriarch’s most well known child is perhaps former US presidential candidate turned Donald Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The statement announcing her death was shared by Joe Kennedy III on social media, and said she had enjoyed a “great summer and transition into fall” surrounded by family, before suffering a stroke in her sleep on 3 October.
Ms Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after her husband’s death and advocated causes including gun control and human rights.
‘One wonders how much this family must be expected to absorb’
The daughter of a millionaire, she married the future senator and attorney general in 1950.
However, by the age of 40, Ms Kennedy had endured more death and tragedy than most would in a lifetime.
Ms Kennedy had been beside her husband Robert F. Kennedy when he was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June 1968, just after he won the Democratic presidential primary in California.
Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, was famously assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
Her parents died in a plane crash in 1955 and her brother in a crash in 1966.
Her son, David Kennedy, later died of a drug overdose and another son, Michael Kennedy, in a skiing accident as well as nephew John F. Kennedy Jr in a plane crash.
Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was found guilty of murder in 2002, although a judge in 2013 ordered a new trial and the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated his conviction in 2018.
In 2019, she was grieving again after granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent drug overdose.
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“One wonders how much this family must be expected to absorb,” family friend Philip Johnson, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation, told the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s death.
Ms Kennedy sustained herself through her Catholic faith.
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