Ethel Kennedy, a bastion of the Kennedy family legacy, one of the last core figures of Camelot, and the wife of the late Robert F. Kennedy has died. She was 96.
The human rights activist passed away on Thursday, October 10, her grandson Joseph P. Kennedy III announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, from complications of the stroke that she suffered last week.
"It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother, Ethel Kennedy. She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week. 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," he wrote.
The statement went on: "She was a devout Catholic and a daily communicant, and we are comforted in knowing she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse; and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie.
Ethel and the former senator and attorney general, who was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968 during his run for president, had 11 children, the last of whom was born after the assassination.
The family's announcement makes mention of Mary Richardson Kennedy — the second wife of Ethel's third child, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who died from suicide in 2012 in the wake of their tumultuous divorce. A book released earlier this year, Ask Not: The Kennedys and The Women They Destroyed, detailed her struggles with depression, her husband's claims that she was an alcoholic, his attempts to cut her off financially, and how prior to her death she discovered a diary of his documenting countless sexual encounters with other women.
RFK Jr.'s relationship with his family
Ethel's death comes almost three months after the very same son, who the family has largely disavowed, withdrew his unprosperous campaign for president as an independent — the family had already endorsed President Joe Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris even before he withdrew — and in an even more stark contrast to the political legacy of the Kennedy family, he endorsed Donald Trump.
As of this publication, RFK Jr. has not spoken out on his mother's death.
Surviving tragedy
Ethel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven children, three years after her husband, 11 after her brother-in-law John F. Kennedy, and one before his wife, Jackie Kennnedy Onassis, who passed away aged 64 in 1994 after a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer.
Emblematic of her legacy is not only her political prowess, which she actively exercised as her husband's right hand, and her activism, but also like with many Kennedys, tragedy.
Her parents died in a plane crash when she was in her 20s, in 1955, and 11 years later, one of her brothers also died in a plane crash (and soon after his wife choked to death). Her brother-in-law was assassinated in 1963, her husband in 1968, two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; her son David died aged 29 in 1984, and another son, Michael, died aged 39 in 1997. Two years later, her nephew John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessett, and her sister Lauren, also died in a plane crash, when they were on her way to her daughter's Rory Kennedy's wedding.