CAROLINE MACDONALD KENNEDY&
Shriver's family issued a statement upon her death,
"It's hard for us to believe: the amazing Eunice Kennedy Shriver went home to God this morning
at 2 a.m.
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. For each of us, she often
seemed to stop time itself - to run another Special Olympics games, to visit us in our homes, to attend to her own mother,
her sisters and brothers, and to sail, tell stories, and laugh and serve her friends. How did she do it all?
Inspired by her love of God, her devotion to her family, and her relentless belief in the dignity
and worth of every human life, she worked without ceasing - searching, pushing, demanding, hoping for change. She was a living
prayer, a living advocate, a living center of power. She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and
more. She founded the movement that became Special Olympics, the largest movement for acceptance and inclusion for people
with intellectual disabilities in the history of the world. Her work transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people
across the globe, and they in turn are her living legacy.
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. At this time of loss, we feel overwhelmed by the gifts of
prayer and support poured out to us from so many who loved her. We are together in our belief that she is now in heaven, rejoicing
with her family, enjoying the fruits of her faith, and still urging us onward to the challenges ahead. Her love will inspire
us to faith and service always.
She was forever devoted to the Blessed Mother. May she be welcomed now by Mary to the joy and
love of life everlasting, in the certain truth that her love and spirit will live forever."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Kennedy_Shriver
Following graduation, she worked for the U.S. State Department in the Special War Problems Division.
In 1950, she became a social worker at the Penitentiary for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, and the following year she moved
to Chicago to work with the House of the Good Shepherd and the Chicago Juvenile Court. In 1957, Shriver took over the direction
of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.
http://www.eunicekennedyshriver.org/articles/article/131
JFK's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver dies at 88
BOSTON – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the presidential sister
who founded the Special Olympics and helped demonstrate that the mentally disabled can triumph on
the field of competition and lead productive lives outside the walls of institutions, died Tuesday at age 88.
Shriver had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at a hospital on Cape
Cod in the company of her husband, her five children and her 19 grandchildren, her family said.
"She understood deeply the lesson our mother and father taught us: Much is expected
of those to whom much has been given," said her sole surviving brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is battling
a brain tumor.
She was also the sister of President John
F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; the wife of 1972 vice presidential candidate R. Sargent Shriver; the mother of former NBC newswoman Maria Shriver; and the mother-in-law of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Shriver was credited with helping to bring the mentally disabled into the mainstream
and transforming America's view of them from institutionalized patients to friends, neighbors and athletes.
Her efforts were inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister,
Rosemary, who was given a lobotomy at age 23 and spent the rest of her life in an institution.
At the time, those with mental retardation
were often a secret source of shame to their families and were quietly put away in institutions.
Shriver revealed her sister's condition to the nation during her brother's presidency
in a 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post.
"The truth is that 75 to 85 percent of the retarded are capable of becoming useful citizens
with the help of special education and rehabilitation," Shriver wrote. "Another 10 percent can learn to make small contributions,
not involving book learning, such as mowing a lawn or washing dishes."
Realizing they were far more capable of playing sports than the experts said, Shriver
in 1968 started what would become the world's largest athletic competition for the mentally disabled. The first Special Olympics — a two-day event in Chicago — drew more than 1,000 participants from
26 states and Canada.
Now more than 3 million athletes in more than 160 countries participate in Special Olympics.
The games have given rise to countless uplifting stories of success against great odds.
"She believed that people with intellectual
disabilities could — individually and collectively — achieve more than anyone thought possible. This much
she knew with unbridled faith and certainty," said her son Timothy, chairman of the Special Olympics.
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."
Former Special Olympics athlete Kester
Edwards credited Shriver and the games with helping him "find a place."
"Mrs. Shriver wasn't making cars, she wasn't selling houses, she was changing human
lives," said Edwards, 35, who works as an athlete coordinator at Special Olympics
headquarters in Washington and was an athlete from 1981 to 1999. "She taught me to accept me as I am."
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.
Her sister Rosemary learned to read and write with the help of special tutors and for
a while had a lively social life of tea dances and trips to Europe. She
and Eunice used to swim and sail together.
But as Rosemary got older, her father worried his daughter's condition would lead her
into situations that could damage the family's reputation, and he authorized a lobotomy in the hope of calming her mood swings.
She ended up in worse condition and lived out the rest of her days in an institution, dying in 2005.
Shriver 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,
who was killed in World War II.
When JFK was in the White House, Shriver
successfully pressed for efforts to help the mentally disabled. In 1961, the president signed a bill she championed to form
the first President's Committee on Mental Retardation — then handed
his pen to her as a keepsake.
In 1953, she married R. Sargent Shriver.
He became JFK's first director of the Peace Corps, was George McGovern's running mate in 1972, and ran
for president himself briefly in 1976.
She was the recipient of numerous honors, including the nation's highest civilian award,
the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received in 1984. Well into
her 70s, she remained a daily presence at the Special Olympics headquarters.
With her death, Jean Kennedy Smith becomes the last surviving Kennedy daughter.
"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, workplace 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.
Survivors include her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease in 2003, and the couple's children: Maria, who is married to Schwarzenegger; Robert, a city councilman in Santa
Monica, Calif.; Timothy; 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.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
___
On the Net: http://www.specialolympics.org http://www.eunicekennedyshriver.org
SEE LINK http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090811/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_eunice_kennedy_shriver
