Ethel was first introduced to the Kennedy family through Robert’s younger sister Jean, who quickly became Ethel’s close friend at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. She first laid eyes on Bobby during a 1945 ski trip to Mont Tremblant, an upscale ski resort in Quebec, and said she was immediately smitten.

She never remarried after the assassination of her husband, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and she devoted herself to working on behalf of the causes he had championed.