Bobby Kennedy’s widow Ethel still stands by her man, his family and his ideals
WHEN college student Ethel Skakel took a skiing holiday in 1945 she met a handsome naval officer, brother of a school friend. The meeting changed her life and wedded her to a political destiny.
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WHEN college student Ethel Skakel and her friend Jean Kennedy went on a skiing holiday to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec in 1945, she had no idea it would change her life.
Jean introduced Ethel to her brother Robert. He was standing in front of a fireplace and, she later recalled in a documentary: “I walked in the door and turned and saw him, and I thought, ‘whoa’.”
It was love at first sight for Ethel. But Robert, better known as Bobby Kennedy, was more interested in Ethel’s older sister Patricia, who he was dating at the time. But when that relationship ended, Ethel pursued her man.
In 1950 Robert and Ethel were married and she became Ethel Kennedy, her identity intimately tied with the famous family.Today she celebrates her 90th birthday and although this year marks 50 years since her husband died, she is still firmly wedded to the Kennedy clan, as matriarch of her own branch.
Ethel was born in Chicago on April 11, 1928, the daughter of Ann Brannack and George Skakel, founder of the Great Lakes Coal and Coke Company, who had made a fortune buying up a coal by-product from railways and reprocessing it to make it useful for other things.
The family later moved to Connecticut, where Ethel was sent to the best schools. She was very athletic and competed in many sports. In 1945 she went to Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, where she became friends with Jean and later shared a room with her. It was in December that year that she met Bobby.
When Ethel and Bobby started dating she became heavily involved with the Kennedy family, even campaigning for John’s run for Congress in 1946. She also wrote a college thesis on Jack’s 1940 book While England Slept, about England’s failures in the lead up to World War II.
Ethel and Bobby married in 1950 and their first child, Kathleen, was born in 1951, the year Bobby began working as a lawyer for the US Justice Department. Their second child,
Joseph II, was born in 1952, Robert Jr in 1954 and David in 1955. Less than four months after David’s birth, Ethel’s parents were killed when their private aircraft crashed.
Needing more space because a fifth child, Courtney, was on her way, the couple moved to Hickory Hill, Virginia, in 1956, a house they bought from John and his wife Jackie. Ethel soon became known for the large parties she hosted there.
Their sixth child, Michael, was born in 1958, followed by Kerry in 1959.
Ethel’s destiny took another turn when John was elected president in 1960 and he appointed Bobby as US Attorney-General.
When Bobby went after organised crime, Ethel lived in constant fear of mob reprisals. Some of that tension was relieved when the couple were sent on overseas trips as representatives of the president. Their eighth child, Christopher, was born in July 1963.
But in November that year Ethel answered a phone call from J. Edgar Hoover, passing the phone to Bobby as Hoover informed him that John had been assassinated. Bobby considered running for vice president or even president in the 1964 election, but eventually decided to run instead for the US Senate for the seat of New York, which he won.
Their ninth child, Matthew “Max” Kennedy, was born in 1965 and Douglas in 1967. With so many children, an active social life and a busy husband, Ethel naturally relied on nannies, but was later unfairly accused of neglecting her children.
In June 1968 Bobby was assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Ethel was pregnant with their 11th child at the time, and gave birth to Rory in December that year.
Ethel coped because the practicalities of looking after such a large family consumed all of her days. Vowing never to marry again, she also threw herself into keeping her husband’s legacy alive.
In 1968 she established the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights, and spent much of her time doing work to raise money for its many charitable causes, including playing in pro-celebrity tennis tournaments.
Tragedy continued to follow her. In 1984 son David died from a drug overdose and in 1997 Michael was killed in a skiing accident. By then Rose, the matriarch of the Kennedy clan, had died and Ethel was taking on more of that role, prominent among the mourners at the funerals of Jack’s son John F. Kennedy Jr in 1999 and Bobby’s brother Ted Kennedy in 2009.
She also took on more of a political role, endorsing Barack Obama at the 2008 election. In 2014 Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her tireless efforts in her many social justice causes. Her grandson, Joe Kennedy III, is currently serving as the US representative from Massachusetts 4th District.
Originally published as Bobby Kennedy’s widow Ethel still stands by her man, his family and his ideals
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