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Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. was born on Nov. 9, 1915, in Westminster, Maryland, the son of Robert and Hilda Shriver, who were second cousins. His mother’s family were Catholic Democrats who had been pro-Confederacy; his father’s side was Protestant, Republican and pro-Union. Robert Sr., a bank officer, eventually converted to Catholicism.
Shriver began his education at St. John’s, a Catholic school in Westminster. When his family moved to Baltimore, he attended Cathedral School, serving as an altar boy.
Shriver attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, on a scholarship. One of his classmates at the all- boys Catholic boarding school was John Kennedy, who would become his brother-in-law. Shriver spent the summer of 1934 in Germany as part of the Experiment in International Living.[1]
He was married for 56 years to Eunice Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy’s younger sister, who died at 88 in August 2009. Shriver devoted his life to public service, leading President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and establishing social programs that included Head Start and Legal Services for the Poor.
Shriver and his wife had five children: Robert Sargent Shriver III, a city councilman in Santa Monica, California; Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger, an author and a former reporter for NBC News; Timothy Perry Shriver, the CEO of Special Olympics International; Mark Kennedy Shriver, vice president and managing director of U.S. programs at Save the Children; and Anthony Kennedy Shriver, founder and chairman of Best Buddies International, which assists people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in finding employment and social opportunities.
Mr. Shriver died peacefully Tuesday at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington D. C., "surrounded by his five children, five children in-law, and his 19 grandchildren." Shriver had suffered from the affects of Alzheimer's disease, which was first disclosed publicly by his family in 2003.
"He lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place," the family's statement said. "He worked on stages both large and small but in the end, he will be best known for his love of others. No one ever came into his presence without feeling his passion and his enthusiasm for them."[2]
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