Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, suffers stroke
BOSTON — The family of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, says she is in the hospital after suffering a stroke.
In a statement on They did not identify the hospital or where she had the stroke.
“She feels comfortable, she is receiving the best possible care and she is surrounded by family,” the statement said. “She is, as you know, a strong woman who has lived a remarkably fulfilling life. We take care of her.”
The 96-year-old matriarch is one of the last surviving members of the extended family generation, which includes President John F. Kennedy.
“She had a wonderful summer and transition to fall,” the family statement said. “Every day she enjoyed time with her children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was able to get out on the water, visit the pier and enjoy many lunches and dinners with family. It has been a gift to all of us, and to her too.”
For a generation of Americans, the Democratic Party clan represented the closest thing the US had to the royal family it has always admired elsewhere. The JFK era was called “Camelot” because the youthful president and his glamorous wife Jacqueline Kennedy evoked a sense of national optimism expressed in a line from the Broadway musical.
She was at Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after winning the Democratic presidential primaries in California. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, which she later founded in 1968, is committed to advancing human rights through litigation, advocacy, education and inspiration. The nonprofit organization also presents annual awards to journalists, authors and others who have made significant contributions to human rights. She was also active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics and the Earth Conservation Corps.
She remained socially active into her 90s, participating in a 2016 demonstration in support of higher wages for farm workers in Florida and a 2018 hunger strike against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. She divided her time between homes in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida.