Kennedy Shriver, Eunice

A representative of the famous Kennedy dynasty , Eunice was born in Brooklyn , Massachusetts, and was the fifth child in a large family. Having received the proper education, she became interested in the social problems of people with various intellectual disabilities and devoted her further activities to solving them. On May 23, 1953, she married Sargent Shriver , a subsequently prominent member of the US Democratic Party , a candidate for the presidency of the party, and also a senator in Massachusetts (since 1973 ). In this marriage, five children were born.

In 1960, Eunice Kennedy actively helped his elder brother, John F. Kennedy , organize and conduct a successful presidential election campaign.

In June 1963, she opened a summer day camp for children and adults with intellectual disabilities in her home in Maryland in order to study their abilities for various sports and physical education . All her work in this direction resulted in the organization of the first international Special Olympic Games , which took place in July 1968 at the Military Field in Chicago . In December of the same year, the Special Olympics was created, which received the status of a charitable organization. In 1988, at the XV Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch signed an agreement with Eunice Kennedy, according to which the Special Olympics received the right to use the word "Olympic" in its name. Since then, Special Games have Olympic status, and are held to date.

The main merit of Eunice is that she was able to prove: regular physical education, participation in competitions help mentally retarded people to acquire skills of work and collective conscious actions, teach them to perform purposefully and organizedly. This creates opportunities for gradual adaptation to real life conditions and integration into society ^[5] . For active charitable activities, US President Ronald Reagan in 1984 awarded Eunice Kennedy the highest state award in the United States - the Medal of Freedom ^[6] .

In the last years of her life, despite her advanced age and serious illness (she suffered from Addison's disease ), she continued to participate in the country's social life. At the age of 88, shortly before her death, she was taken to a clinic in the town of Hyannis ( Massachusetts ) in critical condition, where she soon died of Addison’s endocrine disease ^[7] .

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the fifth child of Joseph and Rosa Kennedy, her three brothers are also US politicians:

• Robert Francis Kennedy ( 1925 - 1968 ) - US Senator from the State of New York from 1965 until his death.
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy ( 1917 - 1963 ) is the 35th president of the United States from 1960 until his death.
• Edward Moore Kennedy ( 1932 - 2009 ) - US Senator from Massachusetts (since 1962 ).

She was married to Robert Sargent Shriver ( 1915 - 2011 ), a prominent US politician from the Democratic Party , from whom she had five children:

• Robert Sargent Shriver III (born 1954 ).
• Maria Owings Shriver (born 1955 ) is a journalist, former first lady of California , from 1986 to 2011, the wife of the famous actor and ex-governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger .
• Timothy Perry Shriver (born 1957 ).
• Mark Kennedy Shriver (born 1964 ).
• Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (born 1965 ).

In total, Eunice Shriver had five children and 13 grandchildren.

According to the memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy , her father-in-law Joseph Kennedy said of his daughter: “Competition drives us. This also applied to women. In fact, Eunice was more energetic than Jack and Bobby. If she were a man, she would become president. ” ^[eight]