Current, former presidents gather to remember life of Ethel Kennedy

Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Two former U.S. presidents and the nation's current made a rare gathering on Wednesday to commemorate the life of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of slain U.S. attorney general and New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy .

President Joe Biden delivered the eulogy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., at which Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also gave remarks.

The 96-year-old Ethel Kennedy was a noted human rights advocate and mother to a large brood of Kennedy descendants, including former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Maryland's first woman lieutenant governor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend .

She was hospitalized Oct. 8 after suffering a stroke and died Oct. 10 in her sleep, her grandson, U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Joe Kennedy III, had announced. She is survived by nine living children, 34 grandchildren and scores of great-grandchildren.

She will be laid to rest at the top of Arlington National Cemetery with her late husband near the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame.

In the president's remarks, Biden said, "We're a better nation and a better world because of Ethel Kennedy." He said she played an "essential role in my life."

Biden told of when his first wife and daughter died in a 1973 car crash and how, later in 2020 when he was elected president, Ethel Kennedy supported him.

"She was there," Biden, 81, said Wednesday. And along with her late brother-in-law Sen. Ted Kennedy , D-Mass., Biden said the two encouraged him to keep his Senate seat when he thought of resigning in the wake of his family tragedy.

"She got me through a time I didn't want to stick around," Biden said . He added she was full of integrity, empathy, light and joy.

Also delivering remarks was Obama, who in 2014 awarded Ethel Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom award.

Obama on Wednesday took note of her many passions from civil rights to juvenile justice.

"As serious as Ethel was about righting wrongs, she never seemed to take herself too seriously," said Obama, who called her a "big dose in a small package" and a "spitfire from a young age."

Born on April 11, 1928, Ethel Skakel Kennedy was called an "amazing fireball with continuous energy" by Clinton, who once met her other late brother-in-law, former President John F. Kennedy, as a young Arkansas student.

"I thought your mother was the cat's meow," he added in a nod to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

On Monday, the Kennedys gathered in Centerville, Mass., at Our Lady of Victory for a private funeral to say their goodbyes in Cape Cod near the family's famous Hyannis Port compound .

Wednesday's gathering marked the first time ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., had been seen or reportedly spoke to Biden since her very public urging for Biden to exit the presidential race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris , now the Democratic nominee.

"How perfect for Ethel to have three great presidents of the United States speak at her funeral," Pelosi said in her own remarks.

RFK Jr., the most recent Kennedy to re-seek the White House, said his mother died in Boston surrounded by several of her children, as well as friends.

She founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation shortly after her husband's assassination in October 1968.

The noted Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly, a former UPI photojournalist, took note of the day Ethel Kennedy was with her husband before his June 1968 assassination in Los Angeles while campaigning for the presidency.

At the time of Robert F. Kennedy's death now 56 years ago, Ethel Kennedy was pregnant. She gave birth six months after her husband's death to Rory, the last of the couple's 11 children.