How Ethel Kennedys iron will and tough love weathered tragedy and ruled her family through generations

Ethel Kennedy, the legendary matriarch of the Kennedy clan, will be remembered for her steely will, ruthless competitive streak and an iron fist.Those characteristics were forged through many tragedies, including suffering the assassination of her husband, Robert F.Kennedy, and untimely deaths of two of their eleven children.Ethel, 96, who died Thursday following complications from a stroke, stoically presided over generations of the Kennedy clan, and is seen by many as keeping them in line and, as much as was possible, their scandals out of the public eye.

 It has been remarked within the family how she was even “more Kennedy than the Kennedys.”“Ethel could be a tough disciplinarian, who kept a tight rein on her children, even when they were adults,” said a source close to the family. Her third son, Robert F.Kennedy Jr., echoed that in a statement Thursday, noting his mother “invented tough love,” and “could be hard on her children,” but praising her loyalty and defense of the Kennedy name, as well as crediting his best qualities to her.Ethel, who devoted her life to humanitarian causes after her husband’s 1968 assassination, was also the social center of the Kennedy clan’s world.She threw legendary parties and dinners at the family summer home in Hyannis Port, Mass., where in her later years she preferred to live full-time, according to Kate Storey, author of “White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port.”“She is the one who continued to host Thanksgiving there,” Storey told The Post.

“They always post a large group picture.For years Ethel made sure Hyannis Port home was filled with visiting luminaries, including Olympic Gold medalist Rafter Johnson, NFL player Rosey Grier and boxer Mohammed Ali.“The joke among the compound staff was that if you left your car door unlocked, Ethel would have someone staying in it that night,” Storey writes.In 2010, as the family’s political influence waned and many famil...