By MARK PRATT, Associated Press Writer Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer
– 19 mins ago
BOSTON – 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.
Shriver had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at Cape Cod
Hospital, her family said in a statement. Her husband, her five children and
all 19 of her grandchildren were by her side, the statement said.
"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.
The hospital is near the Kennedy family compound, where her sole surviving
brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been battling a brain tumor.
Sen. Kennedy said his earliest memory of his sister was as a young girl "with
great humor, sharp wit, and a boundless passion to make a difference."
"She understood deeply the lesson our mother and father taught us — much is
expected of those to whom much has been given," he said in a statement.
"Throughout her extraordinary life, she touched the lives of millions, and for
Eunice that was never enough."
President Barack Obama said Shriver will be remembered as "as a champion for
people with intellectual disabilities, and as an extraordinary woman who, as
much as anyone, taught our nation — and our world — that no physical or mental
barrier can restrain the power of the human spirit."
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.
Peter Collier, author of "The Kennedys, an American Drama," called Eunice
Shriver the "moral force" of the Kennedy family.
"We have always been honored to share our mother with people of good will the
world over who believe, as she did, that there is no limit to the human
spirit," her family members said in the statement.
Shriver was also the sister of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the wife of 1972 vice
presidential candidate and former Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver, and
the mother of former NBC newswoman Maria Shriver, who is married to California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. With Eunice Shriver's death, Jean Kennedy Smith
becomes the last surviving Kennedy daughter.
Schwarzenegger said his mother-in-law "changed my life by raising such a
fantastic daughter, and by putting me on the path to service, starting with
drafting me as a coach for the Special Olympics."
A 1960 Chicago Tribune profile of the women in then-candidate JFK's family said
Shriver was "generally credited with being the most intellectual and
politically minded of all the Kennedy women."
When her brother was in the White House, she pressed for efforts to help
troubled young people and the mentally disabled. And in 1968, she started what
would become the world's largest athletic competition for mentally disabled
children and adults. Now, more than 1 million athletes in more than 160
countries participate in Special Olympics meets each year.
"When the full judgment on the Kennedy legacy is made — including JFK's Peace
Corps and Alliance for Progress, Robert Kennedy's passion for civil rights and
Ted Kennedy's efforts on health care, work place reform and refugees — the
changes wrought by Eunice Shriver may well be seen as the most consequential,"
Harrison Rainie, author of "Growing Up Kennedy," wrote in U.S. News & World
Report in 1993.
It was Shriver who revealed the condition of her sister Rosemary to the nation
during her brother's presidency.
"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." Rosemary Kennedy underwent a lobotomy when she
was 23, though that wasn't mentioned in the article. She lived most of her life
in an institution in Wisconsin and died in 2005 at age 86.
The roots of the Special Olympics go back to a summer camp Shriver ran in
Maryland in 1963. Shriver would "get right in the pool with the kids; she'd
toss the ball," said a niece, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend, who volunteered at the camp as a teen. "It's that hands-on, gritty
approach that awakened her to the kids' needs."
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.
By 2003, the Special Olympics World Summer Games, held that year in Dublin,
Ireland, involved more than 6,500 athletes from 150 countries. The games are
held every four years.
Well into her 70s, Shriver remained a daily presence at the Special Olympics
headquarters in Washington.
"Today we celebrate the life of a woman who had the vision to create our
movement," said Special Olympics President and COO Brady Lum.
"In her memory, we will continue to work to bring her powerful vision to life
to change the lives of those with intellectual disabilities, their families and
communities, using sports as the catalyst for respect, acceptance and
inclusion."
Juvenile delinquency was another issue that interested Shriver and spurred her
to action. In his 1991 book "The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and
How It Changed America," author Nicholas Lemann said the Kennedy
administration's juvenile delinquency commission, "a pet project that had been
created to placate Eunice," became the precursor of the vast federal effort to
improve the lot of urban blacks.
After he took office, President Lyndon B. Johnson tapped R. Sargent Shriver to
lead his War on Poverty.
Eunice Shriver was the recipient of numerous honors, including the nation's
highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received
in 1984. In May, the National Portrait Gallery installed a painting of her —
the first portrait commissioned by the museum of someone who had not been a
president or first lady.
Shriver was born in Brookline, Mass., the fifth of nine children to Joseph P.
Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. 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.
She was a social worker at a women's prison in Alderson, W.Va., and worked with
the juvenile court in Chicago in the 1950s before taking over the Joseph P.
Kennedy Foundation with the goal of improving the treatment of the mentally
disabled. The foundation was named for her oldest brother, Joseph Jr.., who was
killed in World War II.
In 1953, she married Shriver. He became JFK's first director of the Peace
Corps, was George McGovern's vice-presidential running mate in 1972, and ran
for president himself briefly in 1976.
Survivors include her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in
2003, and the couple's five children: Maria Shriver, who is married to
Schwarzenegger; Robert, a city councilman in 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.
Mark Shriver once said his parents' actions, not just words, influenced their
children.
"In the course of our upbringing, they stressed the importance of giving back,"
he said. "But we didn't sit around having family discussions about it. We
learned by what she and my father were doing."
In remembrance of Shriver, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston
will make condolence books available for the public to sign during normal
hours.
