Following her husband Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in 1968, she dedicated her time to serving other people.
Despite enduring several personal tragedies, most notably the assassination of her husband Robert while campaigning for U.S. president in 1968, she worked tirelessly to support the underrepresented throughout her lifetime.
Born Ethel Skakel in Chicago, her father George was a self-made coal magnate, who started out earning $8 a week as a railroad clerk before starting a small coal and coke business. That later was diversified into the privately owned enterprise, the Great Lakes Coal & Coke Co., which became the Great Lakes Carbon Corp.
Reviewing “Ethel: The Story of Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy,” an unapproved biography by Lester David in 1971, WWD noted how as a teenager she once ducked into an Irish rider’s stall at a Madison Square Garden horse show and painted his mount Kelly green with vegetable dye. After realizing that she had enough demerits to be sequestered at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, she threw the demerit book into the incinerator.
In 1969, WWD featured a front-page photo of Kennedy watching the North American Alpine Championship with the professional mountain climber and friend Jim Whittaker, who had hoisted one of her 11 children up on his shoulder for a better view. Kennedy was in Waterville Valley, N.H. for a week to watch a ski championship that honored her late husband Robert. Whittaker had climbed Mount Kennedy in 1965 with him.
After being greeted with her name in lights and a crowd of 500 at the King Crowns Inn in Kokomo, Ind., Kennedy first dashed into the grill for a cheeseburger and a Heineken. “I just can’t go on without a little energy,” she explained. Later while her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined the troops, she ran upstairs to brush her teeth and freshen up before the reception. With her help, her husband’s presidential bid became interactive for voters at home.
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