Ethel Kennedy, RFK’s Long-Devoted Widow and Enduring Link to Camelot, Dies at 96

Ethel Kennedy, the Kennedy family matriarch who remained staunchly devoted to husband Robert F. Kennedy’s legacy in the decades after his assassination, has died. She was 96.

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Her family announced her death Thursday, which they said was related to complications from a stroke she suffered last week. “It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy,” Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass) wrote on X.

“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,” the post continued.

Known for her fiercely competitive spirit and devotion to her Catholic faith, Kennedy raised 11 children as a single mother after her husband was gunned down in 1968 — five years after his older brother President John F. Kennedy.

Living out her final years in the family’s famed Hyannis Port compound on Cape Cod, Ethel’s life was marked by incredible privilege and searing tragedy. The notorious Kennedy Curse seemed to strike Ethel particularly hard—throughout her long life she endured tragic losses that included both her parents, her husband, two of her sons and a granddaughter.

But Ethel wasn’t one to open up about her feelings. Instead, she privately turned to her Rosary, the Bible and daily Mass for solace. In the 2012 documentary Ethel, directed by youngest daughter Rory—who was born six months after her father died—Ethel is often a prickly interviewee.

“Why should I have to answer all these questions,” she bristles at one point, later adding. “All this introspection. I hate it!”

An upscale upbringing

Much like her future husband, Ethel—maiden name Ethel Skakel—was part of a large and prominent Irish-Catholic family. Born April 11, 1928, she was the sixth of seven children to join a boisterous household that resided on a 16-acre estate in tony Greenwich, Conn. Her father, George Skakel, was a self-made multimillionaire who founded the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation; her mother, Ann, was a deeply religious homemaker.

Ethel was first introduced to the Kennedy family through Robert’s younger sister Jean, who quickly became Ethel’s close friend at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. She first laid eyes on Bobby during a 1945 ski trip to Mont Tremblant, an upscale ski resort in Quebec, and said she was immediately smitten.

“He was standing in front of a roaring fireplace in the living room,” she said in the documentary, recalling an interaction that showed off both her athleticism and competitiveness. “We made a bet right away, about who could get down the mountain faster.”

But their love story was initially fraught when Bobby took a “left turn” and dated Ethel’s older sister Patricia for two years. It was a self-described “black period” for Ethel, which lifted after Pat found love elsewhere and RFK and Ethel got together for good. It was, by nearly all accounts, a complementary pairing: shy, studious Bobby was brought out of his shell by the outgoing Ethel—a goofy tomboy who relished a competitive pickup football game and a slightly devious prank. He, in turn, opened her eyes to the plight of the less fortunate, and although she grew up in a conservative Republican household, she swiftly switched political allegiances after their coupling.

The pair married on June 17, 1950, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenwich. John F. Kennedy, then a member of the House of Representatives, served as Bobby’s best man.

A growing family

Ethel and Bobby’s brood grew quickly after their marriage, with eldest child Kathleen making her debut on July 4, 1951, and a new child added to the clan ever year or two. To accommodate their growing size the couple purchased Hickory Hill—a 13-bedroom Georgian estate in McLean, Va.—from John and Jackie Kennedy in 1957. There, Ethel and Bobby raised their large, energetic family in a way that mirrored her own upbringing—with kids and a menagerie of animals running in every direction. At one point, a sea lion took up residence in the swimming pool. “It was constant mayhem—kids, pet parties,” C. David Heymann, author of RFK and A Woman Named Jackie, once said.

It was a happy, chaotic existence for the group, which grew as Bobby Kennedy’s legal career ascended. While Ethel took care of things at home—with a small army of hired help—Bobby first made a name for himself working under Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy as an assistant counsel of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and later as chief counsel for the Senate’s McClennan Committee from 1957 to 1959. He eventually stepped down to run his brother’s presidential campaign, and was appointed Attorney General of the United States after JFK’s 1960 victory.

Exceptionally devoted to her husband, Ethel made a point to attend nearly every one of her husband’s public appearances—and she herself was a staunch supporter of JFK’s presidential bid.

“This wasn’t James Carville and Mary Matalin,” eldest daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend says in Ethel of her parents. “She did what the husband did.”

But she was a devoted, fun-loving hostess who routinely entertained top politicians, celebrities and intellectuals at the property historian Arthur Schlessinger Jr. called “the most spirited social center in Washington” in the 1960s. It was information Schlessinger gleaned firsthand; he was once pushed into the pool by a fellow guest, only to find Ethel already splashing around, fully clothed. While sister-in-law Jackie would exude sophistication and cool detachment, Ethel would lead the charge during one of the many famous Kennedy touch football games, unafraid to trounce her own children and once even playfully biting writer George Plimpton on the ankle in a bid toward victory.

Losing her true love

Per usual, Ethel was by her husband’s side on June 4, 1968, in the middle of the Democratic presidential primary, when he made his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning California. In her 2012 documentary—filmed more than 40 years after his death—Ethel looked as bereft as ever when the subject of his assassination was brought up.

“Talk about something else,” she said brusquely, looking down.

Ethel was three months pregnant with their 11th child at the time of his death, and his assassination vaulted her into the status of the revered. A 1969 Gallup poll named her the country’s most admired woman, even as she retreated to Hickory Hill with her family in relative seclusion. In an April 1969 cover story for TIME, Ethel allowed the magazine a peek into the family’s private life—and private pain.

The article noted how her grief differed from Jackie’s: “Jackie has traced an esthetic arc of grief, ending with a stylish whirl into another world. Ethel’s special triumph has been to maintain normalcy. She has simply carried on, as best she could, the kind of existence that Bobby would have pursued had he lived. Countless other widows have had to do as much, most of them with less comfort from friends, family and position. Yet to acknowledge this takes nothing away from the energetic gallantry with which Ethel has managed it.”

Ethel also famously swore she would never marry again—and never did.

But raising 11 children while coping with her grief was not easy, and seemed to hit her sons particularly hard. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. painted a complex portrait of his mother—opening up about her tendency to speak harshly to her staff while often delivering a “tough love” approach to her children—in his 2018 book, American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family.

“I seem to have been at odds with my mother since birth,” he wrote. “Her flurries of temper appeared to me haphazard and desultory, and, of all of us siblings, most often directed toward me. My rebellious nature, and my inclination for pointing out her caprices may have sharpened her disfavor. My involvement with drugs after my father’s death certainly inflamed it.”

RFK Jr., who is known for promoting conspiracy theories, recently launched a bid for president, joining the race as a Democrat—briefly challenging Biden—before dropping out and launching an Independent bid. Since then he has suspended his campaign. And while RFK Jr., managed to conquer his addiction issues, younger brother and fourth child David never did. He died at age 28 on April 25, 1984, in a Palm Beach, Florida, hotel suite with a cocktail of three drugs in his system, including cocaine.

Tragedy struck again on New Year’s Eve 1997, when sixth child Michael died in a skiing accident while on a family vacation in Aspen. More recently, granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of a drug overdose in August 2019 while on the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port. Decades earlier, both of Ethel’s parents were killed when their private plane crashed on Oct. 3, 1955.

Dedication to human rights

Inspired by her late husband and extended Kennedy family, Ethel because a dedicated human rights advocate after her husband’s death. In 1968 she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights which, according to its website, advocates “for a more just and peaceful world.” In 2014, the Washington, D.C. City Council also voted to name a bridge in her honor to celebrate her work advocating for social and environmental causes in neglected D.C. areas.

Later that same year, then-President Barack Obama also awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work “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.”

“You don’t mess with Ethel,” Obama said while presenting her with the award.

Although Ethel went on to live more than 50 years past her husband, he never remained far from her thoughts, and her deep Catholic faith made her certain that after her own passing she would join him again. And while she is officially on record as hating introspection, she did offer a glimpse into how she coped with grief and her view of death in her 2012 documentary.

“When we lost Bobby, I would wake up in the morning and think, ‘He’s OK. He’s in Heaven, and he’s with Jack and a lot of my brothers and sisters and my parents.’” she said. “So it made it very easy to get through the day thinking he was OK.”