Ethel kennedy, social activist and wife of robert f. Kennedy, has died at 96

“I knew how difficult it was going to be for her to raise that big family without the guiding role and influence that Bobby would have provided,” Rose recalled in her memoir, _Times to

Remember_. “And, of course, she realized this too, fully and keenly. Yet she did not give way.” She founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after husband’s

death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination. When her filmmaker daughter, Rory, brought it up in the 2012 HBO

documentary, _Ethel, _she couldn't share her grief. “When we lost Daddy ...” she began, then teared up and asked that her youngest daughter “talk about something else.” In 2008, she

joined brother-in-law Ted Kennedy and niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, likening him to her late husband. She made several trips to the White House during

the Obama years, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 and meeting Pope Francis in 2015. Many of her progeny became well-known. Daughter Kathleen became lieutenant governor of

Maryland; Joseph represented Massachusetts in Congress; Courtney married Paul Hill, who had been wrongfully convicted of an IRA bombing; Kerry became a human rights activist and president of

the RFK center; Christopher ran for governor of Illinois; Max served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and Douglas reported for Fox News Channel. Robert Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy board a

flight to begin a 26-day Goodwill Tour that will take them around the world in 1962. PhotoQuest/Getty Images Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also became a national figure, although ultimately

not as a liberal in the family tradition. First known as an environmental lawyer, he evolved into a conspiracy theorist who spread false theories about vaccines. He ran for president as an

independent after briefly challenging President Joe Biden, and his name remained on ballots in multiple states after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump. Ethel Kennedy did

not comment publicly on her son’s actions, although several other family members denounced him. Decades earlier, she seemed to thrive on her in-laws’ rising power. She was an enthusiastic

backer of JFK’s 1960 run and during the Kennedy administration hosted some of the era’s most well-attended parties at their Hickory Hill estate in McLean, Virginia, including one where

historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was pushed fully clothed into the swimming pool. In the Kennedy spirit, she also was known as an avid and highly competitive tennis player and a

compulsive planner. “Petite and peppy Ethel, who doesn’t look one bit the outdoorsy type, considers outdoor activity so important for the children that she has arranged her busy Cabinet-wife

schedule so she can personally take them on two daily outings,” _The Washington Post_ reported in 1962. In February of that year, she accompanied her husband on a round-the-world goodwill

tour, stopping in Japan, Hong Kong, Italy and other countries. She said it was important for Americans to meet ordinary people overseas. “People have a distinct liking for Americans,” she

told the _Post_. “But the Communists have been so vocal, it was a surprise for some Asians to hear America’s point of view. It is good for Americans to travel and get our viewpoint across.”

Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven children of coal magnate George Skakel and Ann Brannack Skakel, a devout Roman Catholic. She grew up in a

31-room English country manor house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended Greenwich Academy before graduating from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx in 1945. She met Robert

Kennedy through his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville College in New York. They moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he finished his last year of law school at the University

of Virginia, and then in 1957, they bought Hickory Hill from John and Jacqueline Kennedy, who had bought it in 1953.