Eunice Kennedy Shriver Passes Away


Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver

President John F. Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who carried on the family’s public service tradition by founding the Special Olympics and championing the rights of the mentally disabled, died early Tuesday surrounded by relatives at a Hyannis hospital. She was 88.

“She was the light of our lives, a mother, wife, grandmother, sister and aunt who taught us by example and with passion what it means to live a faith-driven life of love and service to others,” the family said. As celebrity, social worker and activist, Shriver was credited with transforming America’s view of the mentally disabled from institutionalized patients to friends, neighbors and athletes. Her efforts were inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary. “Early in life Rosemary was different,” she wrote in a 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post. “She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and speak. … Rosemary was mentally retarded.”

Realizing the children were far more capable of sports than experts said, Shriver organized the first Special Olympics in 1968 in Chicago. The two-day event drew more than 1,000 participants from 26 states and Canada. She earned a sociology degree from Stanford University in 1943 after graduating from a British boarding school while her father served as ambassador to England. Survivors include her husband, and the couple’s five children: Maria Shriver, who is married to Schwarzenegger; Robert, Santa Monica, Calif.; Timothy, chairman of Special Olympics; Mark, an executive at the charity Save the Children; and Anthony, founder and chairman of Best Buddies International, a volunteer organization for the mentally disabled.

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