Personal Life
On May 23, 1953, she married Sargent Shriver in a Roman Catholic ceremony at Saint 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 1972 Democratic U.S. Vice Presidential candidate (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 (born November 6, 1955)
- Timothy Perry Shriver (born August 29, 1959)
- Mark Kennedy Shriver (born February 17, 1964)
- Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (born 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 brother U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had eleven children who have produced thirty-two grandchildren.)
As executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation in the 1950s, she shifted the organization's focus from Catholic charities to research on the causes of people with intellectual disabilities and humane ways to treat it. This interest eventually culminated in, among other things, the Special Olympics movement.
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, died on September 17, 2006, and her brother, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, on August 25, 2009, leaving her sister, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith, as her only surviving sibling.
Read more about this topic: Eunice Kennedy Shriver
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