Ethel Kennedy

Ethel Kennedy (née Skakel /ˈskeɪkəl/ SKAY-kəl; April 11, 1928 – October 10, 2024) was an American human rights advocate. She was the widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a sister-in-law of U.S. president John F. Kennedy, and a daughter of businessman George Skakel.

Ethel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to businessman George Skakel and Ann Brannack. She was the sixth of seven children, with a younger sister named Ann and five elder siblings: Georgeann, James, George Jr., Rushton, and Patricia.

George Skakel was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, which later became a division of SGLCarbon. He was of Dutch descent and a Protestant while Ann was of Irish ancestry and practiced the Catholic faith. Their children were raised Catholic, and Ethel, a devout Catholic herself, attended mass regularly throughout her life.

Ethel and her siblings were raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She attended the all-girls Greenwich Academy and graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx in 1945. In September 1945, Ethel began her college education at Manhattanville College, where she was a classmate of her future sister-in-law Jean Kennedy. Ethel received a bachelor's degree from Manhattanville in 1949.

Ethel first met Jean's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, during a ski trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec in December 1945. During that trip, Robert began dating Ethel's older sister Patricia, but after that relationship ended, he began dating Ethel. She campaigned for Robert's older brother John in his 1946 campaign for Congress in Massachusetts's 11th congressional district and wrote her college thesis on his book Why England Slept.

Robert Kennedy and Ethel Skakel became engaged in February 1950 and were married on June 17, 1950, in a Catholic ceremony at the St. Mary Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Boston Globe noted that the marriage "unites two large fortunes".

After Robert graduated from law school at the University of Virginia, the family settled in the Washington, D.C., area, and Robert went to work for the Justice Department. In 1952, Ethel and Robert moved into a rooming house in Boston, Massachusetts, and she helped contribute to her brother-in-law John's Senate campaign by organizing "tea parties" for potential voters. Several months after the birth of Ethel's fourth child, her parents were both killed in a plane crash in Union City, Oklahoma, on October 3, 1955.

In 1956, the Kennedys purchased Hickory Hill from Robert's brother John and his wife, Jacqueline. The estate was situated on six acres in McLean, Virginia, (west of Washington, D.C.) with a 13-bedroom mansion. Robert and Ethel held many gatherings at their home and were known for their impressive and eclectic guest lists. Ethel sold Hickory Hill for $8.25 million in December 2009. The couple also owned a home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.