Michael Kennedy

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Family

American lawyer and activist who was the sixth of the eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel. Michael was 5 years old when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and 10 years old when his father, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, was also assassinated. After receiving his law degree, Kennedy worked briefly for a private law firm in Boston, Massachusetts. Kennedy was the head of his brother Joe's non-profit organization, Citizens Energy Corporation, which provides heating oil and services to elderly and poor households in Massachusetts and other cold weather states. Kennedy co-chaired the Walden Woods Project, a non-profit organization to preserve Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. In 1994, he co-founded Stop Handgun Violence, a group that raises public awareness about handguns. Kennedy married Victoria Denise Gifford, daughter of former pro-football player and sportscaster Frank Gifford and Maxine Avis Ewart, on 14 March 1981 in New York City. They had one son, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy Jr. (born 9 January 1983), and two daughters, Kyle Francis Kennedy (6 July 1984) and Rory Gifford Kennedy (14 November 1987). Kennedy died on 31 December 1997 in a skiing accident in Aspen Mountain, Colorado. He was playing football while on skis with several other members of the Kennedy family when, at approximately 4:15 p.m., he hit a tree. Kennedy was not wearing a helmet or other safety equipment. Following the accident, Kennedy was taken to Aspen Valley Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:50 p.m. Link to Wikipedia biography