Ethel Kennedy, a matriarch of America’s most celebrated political family who continued her husband Robert F. Kennedy’s fight for civil justice after witnessing his assassination the night he won the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination in California, died at the age of 96.

“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our wonderful grandmother, Ethel Kennedy,” former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, her grandson, announced Thursday. “She died this morning as a result of a stroke she suffered last week.”

“In addition to a lifetime of work in social justice and human rights, our mother is survived by nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the statement said. . “Please keep her in your hearts and prayers.”

Ethel Kennedy was hospitalized on October 8 when she suffered a stroke in her sleep, according to her family.

The mother of seven sons and four daughters – including one of whom she was pregnant when her husband was assassinated – Ethel Kennedy, who never remarried, raised her children to adhere to the Kennedy faith espoused by her assassinated brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, that “of those who receive much, much will be needed.”

“If someone wants to achieve something, he has to show a little courage. You are only on this earth once. You have to give everything you have,” she said after her husband’s murder in 1968.

When President Barack Obama presented Ethel Kennedy with the Congressional Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2014, he said Kennedy’s “love of family is matched only by her devotion to her nation.”

“She is an emblem of enduring faith and hope, even in the face of unimaginable loss and unimaginable grief,” Obama said at the White House ceremony. “And she touched the lives of countless people around the world with her generosity and grace.”

Born Ethel Schake in Chicago in 1928, her life was marked by a tireless dedication to public service, resilience and tragedy.

Although she was born in Illinois, she and the rest of the Skakel family moved to New England during her childhood as her father’s energy company boomed. Ethel Skakel grew up on an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut and led a life of privilege.

That life took her to Purchase, New York’s Manhattanville College, now Manhattanville University, where she befriended a fellow student named Jean Kennedy, who introduced her to her brother Bobby – Robert F. Kennedy – the man she married in 1950 .

The couple moved to Washington, DC, where Bobby Kennedy worked as an attorney at the Department of Justice, and where they soon welcomed a daughter, Kathleen, the first of their eleven children.

Her husband’s career was flourishing and her brother-in-law, John Kennedy, had been elected to the US Senate. But Ethel Kennedy soon faced tragedy. Both her parents were killed in 1955 when their private plane exploded in midair.

Despite her grief, she immersed herself in her growing family. Then came the 1960s and Ethel Kennedy found herself in the inner circle of events that would become deeply rooted in American history.

In 1960, JFK, her brother-in-law, was elected president and he chose his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general. Then, on November 22, 1963, the Kennedy family and the nation were shattered by the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

But Robert Kennedy’s desire for politics and public service was as great as ever. While campaigning for president, Robert Kennedy said of his wife during his victory speech in the Indiana primaries that she “made such a big difference in this campaign and a big difference to me.”

However, two months later, on June 5, 1968, an assassin’s bullet ended Robert Kennedy’s life as he gave a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California primary. Ethel Kennedy, who witnessed her husband’s assassination, was left widowed at the age of 40 with ten children and pregnant with the couple’s eleventh child. She would never marry again.

Over the years, she fought against releasing her husband’s killer, writing to the California Parole Board in 2021: “Bobby believed we should work to ‘tame the cruelty of man and make the life of the world gentle’ to make.'”

“He wanted to end the war in Vietnam and bring people together to build a better, stronger country. Above all, he wanted to be a good father and a loving husband,” she further wrote. “Our family and our country have suffered unspeakable losses because of one man’s inhumanity. We believe in the gentleness that spared his life, but by taming his violent act he must not be given the opportunity to terrorize again.”

After her husband’s death, Ethel Kennedy became involved in social causes, including gun control, and founded the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center to continue her husband’s work for justice and human rights.

But tragedy was never far away. In 1984, Ethel Kennedy’s son, David, died of a drug overdose. In 1997, her son Michael died in a skiing accident. And in 2002, Ethel Kennedy sent a handwritten plea for clemency for her cousin, Michael Skakel, who had been sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of a teenage girl in Greenwich nearly 30 years earlier.

Despite her great fame, Ethel Kennedy had an intensely private side and refused to give interviews for years. But in 2008, she publicly supported Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The following year, President Obama delivered the eulogy for Ethel Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Senator Ted Kennedy.

In early 2012, Ethel Kennedy, at age 83, was the toast of the Sundance Film Festival, where family members gathered for the premiere of the documentary “Ethel.” The director who captured her life was her youngest daughter, Rory, the baby born six months after Robert Kennedy’s assassination.

Although Rory Kennedy never knew her father, she got to know her mother better during the making of ‘Ethel’.

“Her life has been truly remarkable,” Rory Kennedy said. ‘In the highs and lows and even in everyday life, she led an intense life. It would be hard to find anyone else like her.”