Ethel Kennedy, human rights advocate and widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, died on October 10, 2024, on the age of 96. She based the Robert F. Kennedy Heart for Justice and Human Rights shortly after her husband’s 1968 assassination and was often known as a champion of social causes. Her dedication earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.
Born the sixth of seven youngsters in Chicago in 1928, Ethel grew up in a 31-room English nation–fashion manor in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her father, coal magnate George Skakel, was a self-made millionaire, and her mom, Ann, was a secretary. Ethel married Robert F. Kennedy in 1950. The couple shared 11 youngsters: Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas, and Rory. Six years after they wed, the 2 purchased Hickory Hill, a stately white brick home in McLean, Virginia, from Robert’s brother John F. Kennedy and his spouse, Jacqueline Kennedy. The 13-bedroom dwelling remained below Ethel’s possession till 2009; her seasonal dwelling on the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, the place her massive household congregated each summer time, turned her major dwelling. She is survived by 9 youngsters, 34 grandchildren, and 24-great-grandchildren.
“She has had an awesome summer time and transition into fall,” a household assertion printed by NPR stated of the late human rights activist. “Day-after-day she loved time together with her youngsters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was in a position to get out on the water, go to the pier, and luxuriate in many lunches and dinners with household.”
Learn on to revisit Ethel Kennedy’s iconic properties in Virginia and Massachusetts, each of which Architectural Digest toured.—Katie Schultz
This text initially appeared within the August 1987 situation of Architectural Digest.
The summer time of 1986 marked one other turning level within the lifetime of Ethel Kennedy. Her oldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was working for Congress in Maryland and her oldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy III, was campaigning for Tip O’Neill‘s congressional seat in Massachusetts.
Ethel Kennedy threw herself energetically into each campaigns, a job she hadn’t performed because the late Nineteen Sixties. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend remembers the response her mom obtained. “The entire employees was amazed. At fundraisers, she instinctively observed the few individuals who had been undecided and would go as much as them and appeal them. With out query, she is one of the best campaigner I’ve ever seen.”
