Mrs. Shriver

I’ve been paying attention to the Eunice Shriver story over the last couple of days, so I was not surprised to read of her death this morning. It still made me sad.

Eunice rocked for several reasons:

1. A woman graduating from college in the 1940s was no joke. She went to Stanford and majored in sociology.
2. Her kids seem to have turned out ok. At least I can’t remember any big Shriver scandals. Having five kids turn out ok is a pretty solid achievement. When you are a Kennedy, it is particularly impressive.
3. Oh yeah, the Special Olympics thing.

Joe Kennedy is widely and crudely quoted as saying, in effect, that if his daughter Eunice had been born male, she would have been a great politician. High, high praise coming from him. She was smart, she was tenacious and she actually used her gifts to make the world a better place.

Sometime in the last year, I saw her accepting an award of some sort on TV. When she stood up to give her acceptance speech, she was very frail and her voice didn’t sound right. But she had all of her energy and her eyes were sharp as she started speaking. The part that struck me went something like this:

The most important thing to have if you want a happy and successful life is family. A big family. If you don’t have one, go get one. Off the street if you have to, but get one. I can’t stress that enough.

I’m not sure we grow Eunice Shrivers in this country anymore, and that’s a damn shame.