Ethel Kennedy

Ethel Skakel was born in Chicago, Illinois to businessman George Skakel and his former secretary Ann Brannack.[1] Her parents were killed in a 1955 plane crash.[2] She is the third of four Skakel daughters and the sixth-born of seven. Her five older siblings are Georgeann, James, George Jr., Rushton, and Patricia, and her younger sister is Ann.[3] George was a Protestant of Dutch descent[4][5][6] while Ann was a Catholic of Irish ancestry. Her nephew is Ciarán Cuffe, an Irish politician who serves as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ethel and her siblings were raised Catholic in Greenwich, Connecticut. George Skakel was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, now a division of SGLCarbon.[7] Ethel attended the all-girls Greenwich Academy,[8] and graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan in 1945.[9]

In September 1945, Ethel began her college education at Manhattanville College, where she was a classmate of her future sister-in-law Jean Kennedy.[10] Ethel first met Jean's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, during a ski trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec in December 1945. During this trip, Robert Kennedy 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 his 1946 campaign for the United States Congress in Boston, and she wrote her college thesis on his book Why England Slept.[8] She received a bachelor's degree from Manhattanville in 1949.[9][11]

Kennedy in 1968

Robert Kennedy and Ethel Skakel became engaged in February 1950 and were married on June 17, 1950, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenwich.[12]

During the 1950s, Robert F. Kennedy worked for the federal government in investigatory roles for the United States Senate as a counsel.[13] The Kennedys purchased Hickory Hill, an estate in McLean, Virginia, from Robert's brother John and his wife Jackie.[14] Robert and Ethel Kennedy held many gatherings at their home and were known for their impressive and eclectic guest lists.[15]

In 1962, President Kennedy assigned Ethel and Robert to tour fourteen countries within a 28-day goodwill trip. Though the trip was said to be informal, the host countries viewed her and Robert as stand-ins for the President and First Lady.[16]

On November 22, 1963, Ethel learned of President Kennedy's assassination from her husband. She had answered the phone, identified the caller as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and handed the phone to Robert, who then informed her of the shooting. The FBI Director had never called the Attorney General's home before. Ethel was reportedly devastated by the assassination and worried for her niece and nephew. [17]

Ethel urged her husband to enter the Democratic primary for the 1968 presidential election. Biographer Evan Thomas portrayed her as RFK's "most consistent advocate of a race for the White House."[18]

Children

Joan Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy and Ted Kennedy in December 1968

Robert and Ethel Kennedy had 11 children (7 sons and 4 daughters) over nearly 18 years of marriage: Kathleen, Joseph, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas, and Rory,[20] who was born after Senator Kennedy was assassinated.[22] Kathleen served as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003,[23] Joseph was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 8th congressional district of Massachusetts from 1987 to 1999,[24] and Robert Jr. is running for president in the 2024 United States presidential election.[25][26][27][28] Two of the Kennedys' sons, David and Michael, have died; David died from a drug addiction in 1984, and Michael was killed in a freak ski accident in 1997.

Ethel Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (now known as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights[29] in 1968.[30]

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 the American environmental group, the Sierra Club.[31] 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.[32]

As of September 2018, Kennedy's daughter Kerry Kennedy was president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.[33]

Kennedy sold Hickory Hill for $8.25 million in December 2009.[34][35]

Ethel Kennedy in 2000

During the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Ethel Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama.[36] She publicly supported and held fundraisers at Hickory Hill for numerous politicians that included Virginia gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran.[37] 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.[38]

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.[39]

As of 2019, Kennedy resides at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.[40] She is a practicing Catholic who often attends Mass.[41]

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan honored Kennedy with the Robert F. Kennedy medal in the White House Rose Garden.[42] 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.[43] 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."[44][45]

• Kennedy family tree

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