Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver (née Kennedy) was born on July 10, 1921, in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Her notable siblings included John F. Kennedy, who served as President of the United States; Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Senator and Attorney General; Edward Kennedy, a U.S. Senator; and Jean Kennedy Smith, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

Shriver attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart School in Noroton, Connecticut, and Manhattanville College. She later studied at Stanford University, where she participated in swimming and track and field. In 1943, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology from Stanford.

Following her graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked in the Special War Problems Division of the U.S. State Department. She subsequently joined the Justice Department as an executive secretary for a juvenile delinquency project. During this period, she shared a townhouse in Georgetown with her brother John F. Kennedy, then serving as a U.S. Congressman. She served as a social worker at the Federal Industrial Institution for Women for one year before relocating to Chicago in 1951, where she worked with the House of the Good Shepherd women’s shelter and Chicago Juvenile Court.

In her career, Shriver became the executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation in 1957. She shifted the organization’s focus from Catholic charities to research on the causes and treatment of intellectual disabilities. Her advocacy led to the creation of several initiatives and organizations, including the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation in 1961, which promoted community integration for individuals with disabilities. She was a founding figure of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in 1962.

In 1962, Shriver established Camp Shriver on her Maryland farm, a summer camp for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. This initiative inspired the development of the Special Olympics movement. She founded the Special Olympics in 1968, and that year, the first international games were held at Chicago’s Soldier Field with 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada. The organization became a nonprofit charity, and by subsequent years, millions of athletes participated globally.

After relocating to France in 1969, Shriver continued her work promoting intellectual disability programs and founded smaller initiatives, particularly reaching out to families in Paris. In 1982, she established the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring at the University of Utah, which implemented a character education program adopted by nearly 1,200 schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Shriver received numerous awards for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984, awarded by President Ronald Reagan. She was also honored with the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame in 1988, the Eagle Award from the United States Sports Academy in 1990, and the Senator John Heinz Award in 1992. She was the second American and the only woman to appear on a U.S. coin during her lifetime; her portrait was featured on the 1995 commemorative silver dollar honoring the Special Olympics.

In recognition of her contributions to sport and advocacy, she received the Theodore Roosevelt Award from the NCAA in 2002, and in 2006, she was named one of the most influential individuals in NCAA’s first century. That same year, she was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI. In 2008, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development was renamed the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Shriver’s influence extended into cultural recognition, with her portrait by David Lenz unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in 2009, featuring her among athletes and Special Olympics participants. She received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award posthumously at the 2017 ESPY Awards.

She was active politically, campaigning for her brother John F. Kennedy in 1960 and supporting various social causes, including a complex stance on abortion rights. She married Sargent Shriver on May 23, 1953, in a Roman Catholic ceremony at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.