Ethel Kennedy, matriarch of major political family, had significant foothold in Palm Beach

Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of one of the largest American political families in U.S. history, had a major foothold in Palm Beach history and society.

Kennedy, the widow of the late Democratic senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, died Thursday, Oct. 10 from complications related to a recent stroke. She was 96.

Kennedy, as so many others in the Kennedy family did, spent a significant amount of time in Palm Beach.

The first Kennedy to buy a home in Palm Beach was patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., who in 1933 bought a 1920s oceanfront mansion at 1095 N. Ocean Blvd. Several others, including Ethel Kennedy, followed suit.

She for years leased an oceanfront home at 1356 N. Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach. The house was built in 1966, and has four bedrooms and 3,847 square feet of living space.

"Ethel loves the house," Outback Steakhouse co-founder Tim Gannon told The Palm Beach Post in 2018. "It's like a little palace with chandeliers and high ceilings."

Gannon hosted Kennedy's 90th birthday party that year, with a guest list that included many friends and family along with now-President Joe Biden and wife Jill, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Kennedy frequented local businesses including the Prep Shop and Lullabye Shop on Worth Avenue, owned by the late Jesse and Helene Newman. In an article from the Daily News archive, Jesse Newman recalled, “She would only buy button-down oxford shirts and chino pants. She bought them by the carload because she had about five boys.”

She attended grand openings, fundraisers and galas. Kennedy was photographed in 2019 perusing the stock at Pierce-Archer art framing shop on South County Road. She would quietly shop at markets in town, wearing tennis whites and occasionally flying under the radar.

"I had the opportunity to meet Ethel 30 years ago when I moved next door to her in Hyannis Port, where we formed an instant friendship," said insurance executive Mark Freitas of Palm Beach, Greenwich, Connecticut, and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

"Over the many years I witnessed firsthand her deep faith and great love for family, friends and country. She will forever be remembered for her warm personality, great sense of humor, kind spirit and unwavering loyalty. Today we lost a true national treasure."

"What a great friend Ethel Kennedy was to me and my wonderful husband Brian," said Eileen Burns, whose late husband was trustee of the Kennedy family foundation.

"I remember the Christmas parties singing 'Here Comes Santa Claus' at the top of our lungs, and the Valentine cards were something out of central casting. She had a great sense of humor and a great love for her family and friends. May she rest in peace in the arms of our Lord and be reunited with her husband."

Kennedy took an interest in the so-called “JFK bunker,” a Cold War-era fallout shelter on Peanut Island that was built by the U.S. Navy in 1961 for President John F. Kennedy should he need protection during a visit to Palm Beach.

In 2012, she toured the bunker with her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and several grandchildren, The Palm Beach Post reported at the time. She told the bunker's manager that her family had "always known (the bunker) was here" but never visited, The Post reported.

"It sounds funny now, but living that way was the norm. We expected to have bomb shelters," she reportedly told the manager of her experiences during the Cold War.

Ethel Kennedy was a parishioner at St. Edward Catholic Church, where she regularly attended Mass, and which also served as her polling place.

She joined the Kennedy family when she married Bobby Kennedy

Ethel Skakel became a Kennedy in 1950 when she married Robert F. Kennedy, who would go on to become U.S. attorney general in the administration of his brother, former President John F. Kennedy, and later a U.S. senator from New York.

Robert F. Kennedy died in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968, after being shot by an assassin following a campaign event in Los Angeles.

Asked in a 2014 NBC interview what had inspired her, Kennedy said: "First, Bobby and his life, and, of course, Jack."

Yet their deaths weren't the only tragedies in her life. Ethel Kennedy's parents were killed in a plane crash in 1955, and she lost a brother in a 1966 plane crash.

Kennedy’s son David died of a drug overdose in Palm Beach in 1984, her son Michael was killed in a skiing accident in 1997, and granddaughter Saorse died in 2019 at 22 years old of an accidental drug overdose at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port.

Her son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was a candidate for president earlier this year but has since bowed out of the race and has endorsed former President Donald Trump, also a Palm Beach resident.

In 2016, Ethel Kennedy participated with hundreds of others in a peaceful march through Palm Beach with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, to draw attention to working conditions and wages for farmworkers. She participated in a wheelchair, accompanied by family members.

Lucas Benitez, farmworker leader and co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said Kennedy was a human rights giant who supported the organization in its early days when few people knew about and supported the group's work.

"When we marched on Taco Bell in 2004 in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Kennedy was there. When we fasted outside of Publix’s headquarters in 2014, Mrs. Kennedy was there," Benitez said. "And when we marched through Palm Beach in both 2016 and 2022, Mrs. Kennedy was there. At every step of our journey, Ethel Kennedy was there."

Her solidarity proved pivotal to the group's success, he said.

"When she learned of our anti-slavery efforts and chose the CIW to receive the 2003 RFK Human Rights Award–International human rights award, she helped bring us out from obscurity in rural Immokalee to the halls of the U.S. Senate speaking truth to power, helping our voices be heard around the globe," Benitez said.

Survivors include her nine children, 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

Palm Beach Daily News columnist Shannon Donnelly and USA Today contributed to this report. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Ethel Kennedy: Human rights advocate, former Palm Beach resident dies