Ethel Kennedy

Ethel Skakel Kennedy (born April 11, 1928) is an American human-rights campaigner and widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for nomination as Democratic presidential candidate in 1968.
As Ethel Skakel, she was a classmate of Kennedy's sister Jean at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. She and Kennedy married in 1950 and had seven sons and four daughters. Their house, Hickory Hill at McLean, Virginia, became the scene of notably elegant and exclusive parties.
Soon after her husband's death, she founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a nonprofit charity working to realize RFK's dream of a just and peaceful world. In 2009, Ethel Kennedy was among the chief mourners at the funeral of her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Ethel Skakel was born in Chicago to businessman George Skakel (1892–1955) and secretary Ann Brannack (1892–1955). She was the Skakels' third daughter and sixth child, having five older siblings, Georgeann (1918–1983), James (1921–1998), George Jr. (1922–1966), Rushton (1923–2003), and Patricia (1925–2000), and one younger sister, Ann (born February 14, 1933). George was a Protestant of Dutch descent while Ann was a Catholic of Irish ancestry. 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. She attended the all-girls Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, as well as the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan.

In September 1945, she began her college education at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart (then located in Manhattan), where she was a classmate of Jean Ann Kennedy. Ethel first met Jean's brother Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy during a ski trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec in December 1945. During this trip, he began dating Ethel's elder sister, Patricia. After Kennedy and Patricia's relationship ended, he began dating Ethel. She campaigned for his elder brother John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (1917–1963) in his 1946 campaign for the United States Congress, and wrote her college thesis on his book Why England Slept.

Robert and Ethel became engaged in February 1950, and were married on June 17, 1950, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenwich. Her wedding dress and bridal party gowns were created by noted New York City fashion designer Mamie Conti. As newlyweds, the couple moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where they lived while Robert Kennedy finished his last year at the University of Virginia Law School. The couple had eleven children; Kathleen, Joseph, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas, and Rory. Rory was born after Senator Kennedy was assassinated.

After Robert F. Kennedy graduated with his law degree, the family settled in the Washington, D.C., area and Bobby went to work for the Department of Justice. That path did not last long, as Kennedy was asked by his family to manage his brother John Kennedy's successful 1952 Senate campaign in Massachusetts.

Throughout the 1950s, he worked for the federal government in investigatory roles for the United States Senate. In 1956, the Kennedys purchased Hickory Hill from Bobby's brother Jack and his wife, Jackie. They needed a larger house, since Ethel was pregnant with their fifth child, Courtney. This enormous 13-bedroom, 13-bath home was situated on 6 acres (24,000 m2) in McLean, Virginia.

Robert and Ethel Kennedy held many gatherings at their home. Whether it was a pool party or a formal dinner party, the guest list was impressive and eclectic. Journalist Roger Mudd recalled meeting John Lennon at one such party. Other notable invitees included the Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, entertainer Judy Garland, dancer Rudolf Nureyev and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who found himself thrown into the pool fully clothed where Ethel Kennedy was also already swimming fully clothed.

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.

She learned of President Kennedy's assassination from her husband, who told her of the shooting after she had answered the phone for him and handed it over once identifying the caller as J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director having never called the Attorney General's home before. Ethel was reportedly devastated by the assassination and worried for President Kennedy's children.

Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan; Kennedy died in early hours of June 6. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning. In 1969, Sirhan was convicted of Robert F. Kennedy's murder and was sentenced to death. In 1972, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after the California Supreme Court invalidated that state's death penalty as it existed at that time.

Ethel Kennedy gave birth to a daughter on December 12, 1968. Following her husband's assassination, she stated publicly she would never marry again. For a time, she was escorted to dinners, parties and the theater by singer and family friend Andy Williams. She continued to live at the family home, Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia, until December 2009, when it was sold for $8.25 million.

In 1968, Ethel Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, dedicated to advancing human rights through litigation, advocacy, and education. The Center is a nonprofit charity that issues annual awards to journalists, authors and individuals around the world who have made a significant contribution to human rights in their country.

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 American environmental group Sierra Club.

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.

During the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Ethel Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama. Kennedy publicly supported, and held fundraisers at Hickory Hill for, numerous politicians including Virginia gubernatorial candidate Brian Moran. For Obama, Kennedy hosted a $6-million fundraising dinner at Hickory Hill in June 2008. The $28,500-a-plate dinner was headlined by former Democratic presidential candidate and DNC chairman Howard Dean.

Ethel Kennedy was among the chief mourners at the public funeral for her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy on August 29, 2009. At the funeral Mass, Kennedy placed the pall on her brother-in-law's casket along with sister-in-law Jean.

Ethel Kennedy agreed to be in a documentary about her life that her daughter Rory directed. The film, titled Ethel, is a personal portrait of Ethel Kennedy's political awakening, the life she shared with Robert F. Kennedy, and the years following his death when she raised their eleven children on her own; it features candid interviews with Ethel and seven of her children intercut with historical footage and personal videos.

In August 2014, Kennedy nominated President Barack Obama to do the Ice Bucket Challenge as part of an effort to raise funds and awareness about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). Obama declined to perform the fundraising stunt, but expressed appreciation to Kennedy and made a monetary donation to the cause.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan bestowed her with the Robert F. Kennedy medal in the White House Rose Garden.

In 2014, a bridge over the Anacostia River was renamed the Ethel Kennedy Bridge in her honor, in recognition of her advocacy for environmentalism and social causes in the District of Columbia.

Also in 2014, she was awarded a 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."