By Cynthia Charlene Greason
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Ethel Kennedy (née Skakel /ˈskeɪ.kəl/ SKAY-kəl; April 11, 1928 – October 10, 2024) was an American human rights advocate. Kennedy was the wife of U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy, a sister-in-law of U.S. president John F. Kennedy, and sixth child of George Skakel. Shortly after her husband’s assassination in 1968, she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a non-profit charity working to reach his goal of a just and peaceful world. In 2014, Kennedy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Ethel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to businessman George Skakel and his secretary Ann Brannack. She was the third daughter among their seven children with a younger sister named Ann and five elder siblings: Georgeann, James, George Jr., Rushton, and Patricia.[
Her father George was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, which later became a division of SGLCarbon. He was of Dutch descent and a Protestant 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. On October 3, 1955, Ethel’s parents were both killed in a plane crash in Union City, Oklahoma.
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. The Boston Globe noted that the marriage “unites two large fortunes”.
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, who was born after her father was assassinated. Kathleen served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003, Joseph represented Massachusetts’ 8th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1999, and Robert Jr. ran for president in the 2024 United States presidential election. Her grandson, Joseph Kennedy III, also served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts’ 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Two of the Kennedys’ sons, David and Michael, have died; David died from a drug overdose in 1984, and Michael was killed in a skiing accident in 1997.
In her later years, Kennedy resided at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts and in Palm Beach, Florida. She died in Boston on October 10, 2024, at the age of 96, after being hospitalized for a stroke she had the week prior.
