Kyle Kennedy once took her case to Massachusetts lawmakers. Inside the State House on Beacon Hill, she testified about healthcare discrimination against people living with disabilities, a cause she embraced after a spinal cord injury in 2020.
A granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, she died Sept. 21 at her home in Massachusetts at age 42.
Burke Funeral Homes posted her obituary, which names Michael Kennedy and Victoria Gifford Kennedy as her parents. People reports that her cause of death is still pending.
Her grandparents married in 1950 and raised 11 children. Michael, Kyle’s father, was their sixth child.
Robert F. Kennedy, a Brookline, Massachusetts, native, served as U.S. attorney general under his brother, President John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1964.
New York voters then sent him to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1965 until his death.
An assassin shot him in Los Angeles in June 1968, shortly after he won the California Democratic presidential primary, and he died the next day.
Ethel Kennedy outlived her husband by more than five decades. She was pregnant with their 11th child, Rory, when he was killed. She died in October 2024 at age 96.
Kyle entered the world July 6, 1984, in Washington, D.C. She spent much of her youth in Cohasset, a town on the Massachusetts South Shore roughly 20 miles southeast of Boston.
Milton Academy, a private school in Milton, Massachusetts, founded in 1798, came next.
Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution founded in 1789 in her birth city, followed, and Kennedy left with a bachelor’s degree in history.
Two advanced degrees, both tied to education, followed. Pace University in New York City gave her a master of science in early education.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge gave her a master of education in education policy and management.
Teach for America put her in front of a classroom. The nonprofit, founded in 1989, recruits recent college graduates and places them in schools for two-year commitments.
Kennedy served her two years in New York City public schools, part of the largest public school system in the country.
Her obituary credits that stint with sparking a lifelong commitment to early childhood education and reform.
Her work broadened from there.
Kennedy advocated for equitable elementary education and charter schools, collaborated with education technology companies on curriculum improvement, and served as an instructional coach for primary school educators.
Kennedy also ran. An avid athlete and long-distance runner, she finished the 2019 Boston Marathon.
The race, held each April on Patriots’ Day since 1897, covers 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston. It is one of six World Marathon Majors. The 2019 edition took place April 15.
A severe spinal cord injury in 2020 left her with long-term paralysis and significant health obstacles. The injury came the year after her marathon finish.
Kennedy then directed her energy toward disability rights advocacy, work that included her testimony at the Massachusetts State House.
Two relatives died before her. Her father, Michael, died in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado, on Dec. 31, 1997, when she was 13. He was 39. Her infant daughter, Josie, also died.
Two sons, Conor, 12, and Declan, 10, outlive her. Her former husband, Liam, also survives.
Her mother, Victoria, survives as well. Victoria’s parents are Frank Gifford and Maxine Avis Ewart, and Kathie Lee Gifford is her stepmother.
Frank Gifford, who played defensive back, halfback and flanker, starred for the New York Giants during a 12-season playing career.
He won the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award in 1956 and entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977. He later spent 27 seasons on Monday Night Football and died in 2015 at age 84.
Kathie Lee Gifford married him in 1986.
The television host and author co-hosted a morning talk show with Regis Philbin and later joined the fourth hour of Today. The couple had two children, Cody and Cassidy.
Kennedy’s brother, Michael, and her sister, Rory, also survive her, along with their families.
