WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden eulogized the late Ethel Kennedy in deeply personal terms at a memorial service Wednesday, hailing the wife of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy as “a hero in her own right, full of character, full of integrity and empathy” who helped him through one of the darkest periods of his life.
Biden was joined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in speaking at the memorial service in Washington. All three reflected on Ethel Kennedy’s humor and warmth, her work championing social causes and her unflappable resolve in the wake of tragedy.
“We’re a better nation and a better world because of Ethel Kennedy,” Biden said.
Biden became emotional as he recalled the Kennedy family helping him cope more than 50 years ago when his wife, 30-year-old Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident, broadsided by a tractor-trailer while out shopping for a Christmas tree. The couple’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, who were just about to turn 4 and 3 at the time, were also in the car and were seriously injured.
“Along with Teddy (Kennedy), she got me through a time I didn’t want to stick around,” Biden said. “I wanted no part of being in the Congress, the Senate. ... The fact is like she did for the country, Ethel helped my family find a way forward with principle and purpose.”
Ethel Kennedy died on Thursday at age 96 following complications related to a stroke suffered earlier this month. She raised their 11 children after her husband was assassinated in 1968.
She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
Obama said her life was marked by more tragedy and heartbreak than most could bear.
“She would have been forgiven, I think if, at any point she had stepped away from public life or allowed bitterness to fester after all she and her family had been through,” Obama said. “But that is not what Ethel did because that is not who she was.”
Obama said she became a passionate advocate for everything from juvenile justice to civil rights to environmental protection. He described her as “a big dose in a small package.”
“Well into her 80s, she was still out there marching for something,” Obama said.
The service Wednesday was held at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, the same church where John F. Kennedy’s funeral was held in November 1963. Members of the Kennedy family gathered earlier this week to attend her private funeral.
The Kennedy matriarch was mother to Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory. She was one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend recalled how her mother was fierce and fun-loving, rigorously faithful and reflexively dismissive of authority.
“Stop signs were always mere suggestions,” she said.
And while other mothers would take their children to the playground, she remembered her mom taking her to the Senate Rackets Committee where “daddy was investigating the mob.”
“I think my first sentence was, ‘I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me,” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend joked.
“She thought it was important that we knew what daddy was doing, and only afterwards would she take us to the botanical gardens and the natural history museum,” she said.
Clinton said he was grateful that Ethel Kennedy lived to be 96.
“She was an amazing fireball of continuous energy. It was wonderful to be around her,” he said.
During one of several light-hearted moments during the service, Clinton remembered her phoning him after Hillary Clinton had been elected to the Senate to the same seat that Robert Kennedy held.
“Ethel called me and said if I need any instruction in how to be a Senate spouse from New York, she’d be happy to provide it free of charge,” Clinton said.
Ethel Kennedy was a millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950. She endured more death by the age of 40 than most people would in a lifetime.
She went on to found the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after her husband’s death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination.
The center she founded still advances human rights through litigation, advocacy, education and inspiration, giving annual awards to journalists, authors and others who have made significant contributions to human rights. She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps.
The memorial service featured remarks from some of her children, prayers from dozens of her grandchildren and musical performances from Kenny Chesney, Sting and Stevie Wonder.
Martin Luther King III, the son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., recalled meeting her shortly after his father was assassinated in April 1968, just two months before she would lose her husband. He said it was not random luck that his father found a wife who was strong enough to endure the daunting challenges of the civil rights movement. And it was no accident that Bobby Kennedy found a wife and partner who could handle the slings and arrows that surrounded his leadership.
“One thing I learned from my mother is that beside every great leader, stands a stalwart and very strong partner who refuses to be intimidated or distracted by the many side-dramas that come with notoriety,” King said.
Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as ‘hero’ who put her own stamp on country
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Biden eulogizes Ethel Kennedy as ‘hero’ who put her own stamp on country
- Biden was joined by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in speaking at the memorial service in Washington
Florida braces for frost and possible snow flurries as winter storms hit other parts of the US
- The worst seems to be heading toward the Carolinas, but the Sunshine State’s humans, animals and even plants are preparing for winter weather
MIAMI: Florida won’t be getting hit with massive blankets of snow and ice like the rest of the US, but even frosty windshields and a few flurries can feel like Antarctica to people with permanent sandal tans.
The Midwest and South have been getting major winter storms for several days, and a giant cyclone forecast in the Atlantic Ocean is expected to pull that cold weather east as a powerful blizzard this weekend. The worst seems to be heading toward the Carolinas, but the Sunshine State’s humans, animals and even plants are preparing for winter weather.
Florida could experience record cold
Ana Torres-Vazquez, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Miami, said a cold front earlier this week has already caused temperatures to dip some, but the region could experience record-setting cold this weekend.
“It looks like temperatures across South Florida are dipping into the 30s (Fahrenheit) for most of the metro area and maybe into the 20s for areas near Lake Okeechobee,” Torres-Vazquez said. “And then the windchill could make those temperatures feel even cooler.”
Residents of South Florida are less likely to have heavy coats and other winter clothes, so Torres-Vazquez said it’s important to layer up lighter clothing and limit time spent outside.
Moving north, Tony Hurt, a National Weather Service forecaster for the Tampa Bay area, said there’s a 10 to 20 percent chance of snowfall in that region this weekend.
“Most likely if there’s any snow that does actually materialize, it’ll be primarily in the form of flurries, no accumulations,” Hurt said.
The last two times the area got snow was flurries in January 2010 and December 1989. The record for snowfall was in January 1977, with 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Tampa.
Despite the possibility of snow, Tampa will host the annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest on Saturday. And on Sunday, the Tampa Bay Lightning are set to host the Boston Bruins for an outdoor NHL game at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ home NFL stadium.
Few tourists visiting Florida will be swimming in the ocean or laying out on sunny beaches this weekend, but many attractions will remain open. Most of Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando will operate normally, though their water parks will be closed. Most of the state’s zoos and animal parks will also remain open while keepers take steps to protect the inhabitants.
Zoo keepers working to keep animals safe and warm
Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill said keepers have been setting up heaters and moving reptiles and smaller mammals to indoor enclosures, while primates like chimpanzees and orangutans are given blankets to keep themselves warm. Big cats and large hoofed animals generally do well in colder temperatures and don’t require much assistance from keepers.
“It can be invigorating for animals like the tiger, so they’ll actually become more active,” Magill said.
Outside the safety of the zoo, Florida’s native wildlife has evolved and learned to survive occasional cold snaps, though casualties will still occur, Magill said. Manatees, for example, have spent decades congregating at the warm-water outflows of about a dozen power plants around Florida.
But invasive, nonnative animals like iguanas and other exotic reptiles will suffer the most, Magill said. Iguanas in South Florida famously enter a torpid state during cold periods and even fall out of trees. They usually wake up when the temperature increases, but many will die after more than a day of extreme cold.
“At the end of the day, they don’t belong here, and that might be nature’s way of trying to clean that up a little bit,” Magill said. “That is a part of natural selection.”
Protecting crops is a priority for farmers
Florida’s agriculture industry is also bracing for the cold. Farmers are working to safeguard their crops as winter harvest continues and spring planting begins in some areas, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association spokeswoman Christina Morton said.
“Preparations vary by crop and include harvesting and planting ahead of the freeze, increasing water levels in ditches, using overhead irrigation, and, in some cases, deploying helicopters to protect sensitive fields,” Morton said.
The Florida deep freeze comes as the arctic blast from Canada also spreads into southern states where thousands of people remain without power to heat their homes, and people in mid-Atlantic states prepare for possible blizzard conditions as a new storm is expected to churn along the East Coast.
Temperatures in hard-hit northern Mississippi will feel as cold as minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 21 degrees Celsius) when the expected strong winds are factored in, National Weather Service forecasters say. People in a large part of the southeastern US were under a variety of alerts warning of extremely cold weather on the way.
The storm expected to hit the Eastern Seaboard has prompted more warnings in the Carolinas and nearby states. That storm is expected to bring heavy snow and strong winds, which could create “dangerous, near-blizzard conditions,” the weather service warned.
