Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who raised her 11 children after her husband’s assassination and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades, died Thursday, her family said. He was 96 years old.
Kennedy had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke in her sleep on Oct. 3, according to her family.
“It is with a heart full of love that we announce the passing of our incredible grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III posted on X. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke she suffered last week.”
“Along with her lifelong work on social justice and human rights issues, 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 family statement said. .
The Kennedy matriarch, whose children were Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was among the last remaining members of a generation that included President John F. Kennedy.
His family noted that he had recently enjoyed seeing many of his relatives before becoming ill.
The daughter of a millionaire who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950, Ethel Kennedy had endured more tragic deaths by her 40s than most people in their entire lives.
She was at Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was shot to death in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California. His brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
His parents died in a plane crash in 1955 and his brother died in an accident in 1966. His son David Kennedy later died of a drug overdose, his son Michael Kennedy in a skiing accident, and his nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash.
Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was convicted of murder in 2002, although a judge ordered a new trial in 2013 and the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 2018.
In 2019, he was in mourning again after his granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent drug overdose.
“You wonder how much this family should be expected to absorb,” family friend Philip Johnson, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation, told the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s death.
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