The son known familiarly to the whole country as Bobby Kennedy married Ethel Skakel on June 17, 1950.

They went on to have 11 children: Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Maxwell, Douglas and Rory.

Ethel was pregnant with Rory when Bobby was fatally shot on June 6, 1968, shortly after winning the California Democratic primary.

David Kennedy died of a drug overdose on April 25, 1984, at the age of 28. Michael Kennedy was killed on Dec. 31, 1997, when he slammed into a tree while on skis and simultaneously tossing a football around during a family trip to Aspen, Colo. The 37-year-old shared three children with wife Victoria Gifford.

Her husband died when their eldest child was only 16, but Ethel Kennedy went on to be a grandmother of 34. Two of her grandchildren have died: Courtney and husband Paul Hill‘s daughter Saoirse Hill, 22, in 2019 of an accidental drug overdose and Kathleen and husband David Townsend‘s daughter Maeve Kennedy McKean, 40, in a 2020 canoeing accident.