JFK's Last Surviving Sibling, Jean Kennedy Smith, Has Died
Jean Kennedy Smith, a former U.S. ambassador to Ireland and the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy, passed away at the age of 92.
The New York Times reports her death was confirmed by her daughter Kym Smith, and that she died Wednesday in her Manhattan home.
Smith was the second-youngest and last-surviving sibling of the family. Her siblings included older brother Joseph Kennedy Jr., who was killed during World War II, Kathleen Kennedy, who passed away in a 1948 plane crash, President Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963 and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed in 1968. Her sisters Patricia Kennedy and Rosemary Kennedy died in 2006 in 2005, respectively. Sen. Edward Kennedy, the youngest of the Kennedy siblings, died of brain cancer in August 2009, the same month their sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died.
On the Today show on Thursday morning, niece Maria Shriver called her "an extraordinary woman" who "had a great career on behalf of this country, as ambassador to Ireland promoting peace there."
"I take solace in the fact that she is joining every other member of her family up in heaven," Shriver said.
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As an ambassador in the 1990s, she helped pave the way for a formal agreement to end decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
Smith was born in 1928 in Massachusetts, and in 1956, married Stephen Edward Smith, a one-time White House chief of staff who passed away in 1990. The couple had four children — sons Stephen Jr. and William and daughters Amanda and Kym. Smith is also survived by six grandchildren, according to the Times.