More Celebrity Deaths. Sister of JFK/RFK and Wife of Mickey Mantle pass away.

As the endless number of Internationally known celebrities passing away continues, here in summer of 2009 two more are added to the list:cry:. Both are related to the world of sports and reason i combined their bio here. The sister of both John F Kennedy and US Senator Bobby Kennedy Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Wife of Baseball Great Mickey Mantle died in last couple of days. First the bio of Eunice Shriver.

 

 

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, President John F. Kennedy's sister and founder of Special Olympics, dies

By David Saltonstall

NY DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

 

Updated Tuesday, August 11th 2009, 6:54 AM

 

Eunice Shriver, a sister of both President John K. Kennedy and Former New York Sen. Bobby Kennedy whose founding of the Special Olympics inspired millions of people with disabilities to go for the gold, died Tuesday morning at a Massachusetts hospital.

 

Her death came after members of her storied clan - among them her daughter, Maria Shriver, the first lady of California, and her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - rushed to her side at Cape Cod Hospital in recent days.

 

The 88-year-old Shriver organized the first Special Olympics in 1968, inspired in large part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.

 

"You are the stars and the world is watching you," Shriver said in kicking off the 1987 games. "By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory."

 

Tuesday, the tributes started to pour in from both the powerful and the powerless as the many she touched paused to pay their respects.

 

"We have always been honored to share our mother with people of good will the world over who believe, as she did, that there is no limit to the human spirit," her family members said in a statement released to the media.

 

"Thank you, Mrs. Shriver, for teaching all of us how to find what we can do, instead of what we can't do," wrote one Special Olympian on Shriver's website, http://www.eunicekennedyshriver.org.

 

"The country has been blessed with all you've done for those less fortunate than most," wrote another. "God bless."

 

The Special Olympics grew into one of the world's most celebrated charities, offering 3 million people with special needs the forums - and the encouragement - to compete athletically in some 30 summer and winter sports.

 

Perhaps the games' oath summed up Shriver's philosophy best: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

 

She was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan because of her work. She later became the only woman to have her portrait appear, during her lifetime, on a U.S. coin - the 1995 commemorative Special Olympics silver dollar.

 

At a tribute to her at The Kennedy Presidential Library in 2007, Shriver credited her life's path to her parents, "who loved me and made me believe in possibilities."

 

But she gave the greatest credit to her sister, Rosemary, and the "unbearable rejection" young Rosemary endured as a person born mentally retarded.

 

"I hope that many of you will join in my special mission to make the world safe for people with intellectual disabilities," Shriver concluded, "and to make the world safe for human dignity."

 

The fifth of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, the 88-year-old Shriver lived in Hyannis Port, near the historic family compound where her sole surviving brother, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, continues to battle brain cancer.

 

A graduate of Stanford University, Mrs. Shriver was married in 1953 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan to Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., who later became the driving force behind the Peace Corps.

 

c)2009 NY Daily News, Inc.

 

 

 

While the sister of JFK and RFK passes, here story of the window of MLB Hall of Famer and Yankee Great Mickey Mantle also dying. To get better idea of Mickey Mantle, watch the movie "61" when you guys get a chance.

 

Merlyn Mantle, widow of Yankee Hall of Fame icon Mickey Mantle, succumbs to Alzheimer's disease at age 77

BY Michael Obernauer

 

NY DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

 

Tuesday, August 11th 2009, 4:00 AM

 

 

Merlyn and Mickey Mantle, the Yankee icon, were high school sweethearts whose storybook marriage saw plenty of tough times.

 

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Merlyn Mantle, the widow of Mickey Mantle who was by turns the adoring, troubled and stoic partner in a 43-year marriage to the Yankee icon, died Monday in a hospice in Plano, Tex. She was 77.

 

The cause of death was the effects of Alzheimer's disease, the Yankees said in a statement. Merlyn Mantle had made a home in Dallas, just south of Plano, for 51 years.

 

Merlyn and Mickey, high school sweethearts, were married on Dec. 23, 1951, following Mickey's rookie season with the Yankees and two years after what Merlyn later described in a memoir as love at first sight. When they met, Mickey was a student at Commerce High School in Oklahoma and Merlyn a cheerleader at Commerce's archrival, Picher High.

 

"I developed an instant crush on Mickey Mantle, and by our second or third date, I was in love with him and always would be," Merlyn wrote in a 1996 book, "A Hero All His Life," that she co-authored with sons David and Danny Mantle, along with the writer Mickey Herskowitz.

 

But the couple's 43-year marriage did not fit the fairy tale that their two-year courtship did. Mickey, Merlyn, Danny, David and son Mickey Jr. all waged their separate battles with alcoholism, with the four men being treated at various times at the Betty Ford Clinic and Merlyn finding help in Alcoholics Anonymous. After Mickey's retirement following the 1968 season, his habits for partying and womanizing became well-known until he came to public grips with them before his death from cancer on Aug. 13, 1995, in Dallas.

 

"I was in there partying and doing the same thing as Mick," Merlyn said in an interview with the Daily News shortly after her husband's death in 1995. "That was our life and I was part of it; I can't deny that. It ruins families."

 

Merlyn outlived two of her sons as well. Billy Mantle died in 1993 from a heart attack at age 36 after his own fight with cancer. And cancer claimed Mickey Jr. in December 2000, at age 47.

 

Merlyn made her last public appearance a year ago, Aug. 5, when she joined mourners at a private dinner in Oklahoma City on the eve of a memorial service for Bobby Murcer. She was unable to attend the service the following morning.

 

Born Merlyn Louise Johnson on Jan. 28, 1932, in Cardin, Okla., she is survived by two sons, David and Danny Mantle; her sister, Pat LaFalier of Miami, Okla.; and four grandchildren.

 

Following a private funeral, Merlyn will be buried alongside Mickey and their sons Billy and Mickey Jr., at Sparkman Hillcrest Cemetery in Dallas.

 

Mickey Mantle dedicated "The Mick," his 1985 autobiography, "To Merlyn, who has put up with me for 33 years."

 

In the days after Mickey's death, Merlyn Mantle, in the interview with The News, lamented how her husband had committed to turning his life around too late - just before liver cancer robbed him of a chance to follow through. "He could have had a whole new life if it had not been for the cancer," Merlyn said at the time. Choking back tears, she added: "It's just very sad. We were best friends."

 

c)2009 NY Daily News, Inc.

 

Reactions/Comments

I forgot to add that Mrs Shiver is Maria Shiver mom who husband is currently the Gov of California.

:cry: They're all gone. President Mr. John F. Kennedy (November 22, 1963); Senator Mr. Robert F. Kennedy (June 5, 1968); First Lady Mrs. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (May 19, 1994); Mrs. Eunice Kennedy Shriver and now Senator Mr. Ted Kennedy. Even John-John is gone.

 

Best to remember President Kennedy in "Profiles In Courage" and "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Your Country".

And Senator Kennedy in "Thirteen Days" (a memoir of The Cuban Missile Crises.)

This has been a bad month for the Kennedys.