Name at birth: Ethel Skakel

Ethel Skakel married future senator Robert F. Kennedy on 17 June 1950. (She had roomed with RFK's sister Jean Kennedy at the Manhattan College of the Sacred Heart.) As Ethel Kennedy became a well-known member of the Kennedy clan, particularly after Robert became Attorney General under his brother, John F. Kennedy, and then a senator from New York. Ethel and Robert had eleven children in all. Ethel Kennedy was widowed in 1968 when her husband was shot to death by Sirhan Sirhan while Robert Kennedy was campaigning for president. After her husband's death Ethel Kennedy founded the RFK Memorial organization, a non-profit group devoted to social activism and human rights. Her name was in the news in 2002 when a nephew, Michael Skakel, went on trial for and was convicted of the 1975 killing of Martha Moxley. Michael Skakel is the son of Ethel Kennedy's brother Rushton Skakel.