Ethel Kennedy, a human rights advocate and the widow of slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, is recovering in the hospital from a stroke she suffered last week.
Her grandson, the former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, shared the update on 96-year-old Ethel’s health in a post on X Tuesday evening. He said she suffered a stroke in her sleep early Thursday and was hospitalized as a result.
“She is comfortable, she is getting the best care possible, and she is surrounded by family,” Kennedy continued. “She is, as you may know, a strong woman who has led a remarkably fulfilling life. We are here looking after her.”
Ethel Kennedy joins her husband, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in New York in April 1968 to announce that he will run for the presidential election. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
As matriarch of one of the most well-known political families in America, Ethel had eleven children from 1951 to 1968. Her youngest was born six months after her husband was killed.
She was by Robert Kenndy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, shortly after the senator from New York won the Democratic presidential primary in California.
Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
Following her husband’s death, Ethel founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization to carry on his “legacy and forge ahead with the unfinished work―all in pursuit of the dream of a more just and peaceful world,” according to its website.
Ethel went on to work across several other human rights organizations, including the Coalition of Gun Control, which earned her the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2014.
“You don’t mess with Ethel,’’ President Obama said at the time. He added that her “love of family is matched only by her devotion to her nation.”