Eunice Kennedy Shriver Biography
Summary
"Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver" (July 10, 1921- August 11, 2009) was a member of the Kennedy family and helped to found Special Olympics in the 1960s as a national organization. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, she was the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy ("née" Fitzgerald).
Personal life
Kennedy was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, London, England, and graduated in 1944 from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, with a Bachelor of Science in Social Science/Social Thought, after which she went to work for the U.S. Department of State, in the Special War Problems division. In 1950, she became a social worker at the then-named Federal Industrial Institution for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, and the following year she moved to Chicago, Illinois, to work with the House of the Good Shepherd and the Chicago Juvenile Court.
On May 23, 1953, she married Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. at Roman Catholic St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, New York.
Her husband served as the U.S. Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970 and was the Democratic U.S. Vice Presidential candidate in 1972 (with George McGovern as the candidate for U.S. President).
They had five children: Robert Sargent Shriver III (born April 28, 1954), Maria Owings Shriver (November 6, 1955), Timothy Perry Shriver (August 29, 1959), Mark Kennedy Shriver (February 17, 1964), and Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (July 20, 1965).
With her husband, she had nineteen grandchildren, the second-most of any of the children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. Her late brother U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had eleven children who have produced thirty-two grandchildren.
Upon the death of her sister, Rosemary Kennedy, on January 7, 2005, Shriver became the eldest of the four then-surviving children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. (Her sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, later died on September 17, 2006, leaving just her brother U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy and her sister, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.)
Political career
Shriver actively campaigned for her elder brother, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, during his successful 1960 U.S. presidential election.
In 1968, she helped Ann McGlone Burke nationalize the Special Olympics movement and is the only woman to have her portrait appear, during her lifetime, on a U.S. coin – the 1995 commemorative Special Olympics silver dollar.
Her daughter, Maria Shriver, is married to actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger who is currently Governor of California (elected 2003). Shriver, a lifelong Democrat, supported her Republican son-in-law's successful bid. During the 1992 Democratic presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, she was one of several prominent Democrats including Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York, who signed a letter to the New York Times, protesting the Democratic Party's pro-choice plank in its platform.
She and her husband are opponents of abortion, and she was a supporter of Feminists for Life of America, the Susan B. Anthony List, and Democrats for Life of America.
On January 28, 2008, she was present at American University, Washington, D.C., when her brother, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, announced his endorsement of Barack Obama's U.S. presidential campaign.
Charity work and awards
A longtime advocate for children's health and disability issues, Shriver was a key founder of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a part of the National Institutes of Health, in 1962, and has also helped to establish numerous other health-care facilities and support networks throughout the country.
In 1968, Shriver founded the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring at The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.
She was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the (U.S.) Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1984 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, because of her work on behalf of those with mental retardation.
For her work in founding the Special Olympics, Shriver received the Civitan International World Citizenship Award. Her advocacy on this issue has also earned her other awards and recognitions, including honorary degrees from numerous universities.
Shriver received the 2002 Theodore Roosevelt Award, an annual award given by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
In 2008, the U.S. Congress changed the NICHD's name to the "Eunice Kennedy Shriver" National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
On 9 May 2009, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., unveiled an historic portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the first portrait the Gallery has ever commissioned of an individual who had not served as a U.S. President or First Lady. The portrait of Mrs. Shriver depicted her with four Special Olympics athletes (including Loretta Claiborne) and one Best Buddies participant and was painted by David Lenz, the winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in 2006. As part of the Portrait Competition prize, the National Portrait Gallery commissioned a work from the winning artist to depict a living subject for the collection. Lenz, whose son, Sam, has Down syndrome and is an enthusiastic Special Olympics athlete, was inspired by Mrs. Shriver's dedication to working with people with intellectual disabilities.
Shriver involved Dorothy Hamill's special skating program in the Special Olympics after her Olympic skating win.
Health
Shriver, who was believed to have suffered from Addison's disease, had several health setbacks in recent years, and on November 18, 2007, she was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; she spent several weeks there.
On August 7, 2009, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was admitted to Cape Cod Hospital with an unknown ailment.
On August 10, 2009, Relatives of Eunice Kennedy Shriver were summoned Monday to a hospital on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a source close to the family told CNN. 'It's minute to minute right now,' the source said.
Death
In the early morning of August 11, 2009 Shriver died at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The immediate cause of her death has not been released. The news of her death was first broadcasted on MSNBC's morning show "Morning Joe" via email to "Time Magazine" guest Mark Halperin.
Shriver's family issued a statement upon her death,
External links
(Eunice Kennedy Shriver) (official website)
(Special Olympics) (official website)
Shapiro, Joseph, (Eunice Kennedy Shriver's Olympic Legacy) National Public Radio, "Morning Edition", April 5, 2007
(Coin of the Month) , U.S. Mint 'Coin of the Month' page (geared for children) on the 1995 Special Olympics Commemorative Silver Dollar
(Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring) (official website)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
