The Sad Story of Ethel Kennedy: The Widow Left Behind by History

There is a photograph taken inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of June 5, 1968, showing Ethel Kennedy crouched over her dying husband, Robert F.

Kennedy. She was three months pregnant, already the mother of ten children, and surrounded by confusion and terror.

Yet she was looking directly at him. That single image captures the tragedy of Ethel Kennedy, but it cannot explain the extraordinary life that followed.

Ethel was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven children.

Her father, George Skakel, had risen from an $8-a-week railroad job to build a prosperous energy business, while her mother, Anne, instilled a deep Catholic faith in the family.

By the time Ethel was growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Skakel household occupied a 31-room English country manor filled with siblings, horses, dogs, chickens, and endless commotion.

Ethel was perfectly suited to that environment. She was competitive, mischievous, energetic, and uncomfortable with sitting still.

After attending Greenwich Academy and the Convent of the Sacred Heart, she enrolled at Manhattanville College in 1945.

There she became roommates with Jean Kennedy, daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Their friendship introduced Ethel to the Kennedy family and eventually to the man who would change her life.

At a ski trip in Quebec in December 1945, seventeen-year-old Ethel first noticed Jean’s brother Robert.

She was immediately captivated, although Robert initially showed little interest in her and began dating her older sister Patricia instead.

For two years, Ethel watched from the sidelines. When Robert and Patricia eventually separated and Robert turned his attention toward Ethel, she did not hesitate.

They became engaged in February 1950 and married that June at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenwich.

Marriage brought Ethel into the center of American political life. Children arrived quickly: Kathleen, Joseph, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Douglas, and eventually Rory.

Ethel treated motherhood and politics as interconnected parts of the same life. She campaigned for John Kennedy, hosted political gatherings, and developed a remarkable ability to identify undecided voters and win them over personally.

In 1955, tragedy struck when both of Ethel’s parents died in a plane crash. She already had four children and another on the way.

Yet she responded to grief as she would many times afterward: by continuing to move forward.

The following year, Robert purchased Hickory Hill in Virginia, a thirteen-bedroom estate that became the center of the Kennedy family’s extraordinary social and political life.

Under Ethel’s influence, it became part family home, part playground, part political headquarters, and part menagerie.

Horses, dogs, chickens, goats, reptiles, geese, and even a sea lion appeared at various times.

Politicians, astronauts, writers, musicians, and intellectuals gathered there. John Glenn could be questioned about spaceflight while someone else was being thrown into the swimming pool.

Ethel brought the same competitive energy to everything. Touch football games became legendary, dinner parties could turn into poetry contests, and even impeccably dressed political figures were not necessarily safe from an unexpected plunge into the pool.

Hickory Hill was chaotic, but it was also alive, and Ethel was its unmistakable force.

Robert’s political career continued to rise. He became attorney general when John Kennedy became president in 1961.

Then, on November 22, 1963, John Kennedy was assassinated. Ethel was at Hickory Hill when FBI director J.

Edgar Hoover called. She handed the phone to Robert and watched his expression change. Robert was transformed by his brother’s death.

He became increasingly focused on poverty, injustice, and suffering throughout America. Ethel changed too, although her response was different.

She kept the household functioning, cared for the children, and continued moving forward. Robert eventually became a senator from New York and began traveling through impoverished communities, migrant labor camps, and areas neglected by American prosperity.

Ethel accompanied him whenever possible. Their experiences changed her political outlook profoundly. The wealthy Republican household she had grown up in had given way to a woman deeply committed to social justice.

By 1967, Ethel was encouraging Robert to consider a presidential campaign. She believed in him even when he doubted himself.

At Hickory Hill, while Robert wrestled with the decision, the children unfurled a banner reading “Kennedy for President.”

Ethel had arranged the spectacle. Robert announced his candidacy in March 1968. The campaign lasted only 85 days.

Ethel was pregnant with their eleventh child and traveled with Robert despite her fear of flying.

She appeared beside him at rallies and became one of his most trusted sources of encouragement.

After Robert won the California primary on June 4, he delivered his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel.

Shortly after midnight, Robert walked through the hotel’s kitchen corridor. Sirhan Sirhan stepped forward and fired a pistol.

Robert collapsed. Ethel, walking beside him, crouched over her husband and remained with him amid the screaming and confusion.

Robert died the following day, June 6, 1968. He was 42. Ethel was 40, pregnant, and suddenly responsible for ten children.

Robert’s funeral became a national event. His coffin traveled by train from New York to Washington, while thousands of people gathered along the tracks.

He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery near his brother John. Ethel returned to Hickory Hill and faced the impossible task of raising her family without Robert.

She vowed never to remarry, grounding the decision partly in her Catholic faith and partly in her determination to preserve what their marriage had meant.

Six months after Robert’s assassination, she gave birth to their daughter Rory. Rather than retreat permanently into grief, Ethel transformed her sorrow into public service.

In 1968, she helped establish the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, an organization dedicated to the principles Robert had championed.

She remained connected to its work for the rest of her life. Her private losses continued.

Her son David, who had been present at the Ambassador Hotel when Robert was shot, struggled with addiction and died from an accidental drug overdose in 1984.

In 1997, another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident. By then Ethel had endured the deaths of her parents, siblings, husband, and two children.

Yet she continued. She worked for migrant workers, Native American rights, environmental protection, gun control, and other causes.

She supported the Earth Conservation Corps, community development projects, and human-rights advocates. She endorsed Barack Obama and hosted a major fundraiser at Hickory Hill.

In 2014, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Even in her later years, Ethel remained active.

At 80, she traveled to Indianapolis to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. At 88, she attended a demonstration supporting higher wages for farm workers.

At 90, she participated in a hunger strike protesting immigration policies. At 93, she opposed the parole of Sirhan Sirhan.

Ethel eventually sold Hickory Hill in 2009. In 2012, her daughter Rory made a documentary about her life, allowing audiences a rare glimpse behind the public image.

Even then, Ethel struggled to speak about Robert’s assassination, sometimes simply changing the subject. On October 3, 2024, Ethel suffered a stroke in her sleep.

She died on October 10 at the age of 96. She left behind nine surviving children, 34 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren.

Her funeral brought together political figures who had known her for decades, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton.

Ethel was buried beside Robert, as she had always intended. Her life cannot easily be reduced to the role of widow, mother, Kennedy, activist, or political spouse.

She was all of those things, but none completely explains her. History often remembers John Kennedy as the glamorous president, Jacqueline Kennedy as the elegant widow, and Robert Kennedy as the candidate whose life ended before his promise could be fulfilled.

Ethel was the woman beside him when everything collapsed. She was also the woman who returned home afterward and kept going.

She raised eleven children, founded a human-rights organization, buried two sons, endured decades of grief, and continued appearing wherever she believed she could make a difference.

She rarely sought the spotlight and often avoided discussing her pain. Her answer to tragedy was action.

That may be the most important part of Ethel Kennedy’s story. She did not allow history to define her solely by the night Robert died.

She chose to live beyond that moment without ever pretending it had not happened. For 56 years, she carried the memory of her husband while building a life around service, family, faith, and causes larger than herself.

Ethel Kennedy lived for 96 years. She witnessed the transformation of modern America and survived an almost unimaginable accumulation of personal loss.

Through it all, she continued to show up. Not because the pain had disappeared, but because there was always something else that needed doing.

And perhaps that is why her story remains so powerful. She was not simply the woman history saw kneeling beside Robert Kennedy.

She was the woman who stood up afterward and spent the rest of her life moving forward.