Editorial: Shining a light on special kids

Eunice Kennedy Shriver could've coasted through life on her family name, enjoying the perks and privilege that come with being the daughter of a wealthy U.S. ambassador to England, sister of one president and two senators, the wife of a vice presidential candidate and Peace Corps director, and the mother-in-law to California's governor.

Instead, her inspiration and life's work came from one of the least known members of the storied Kennedy clan, her older sister Rosemary, who was born mildly retarded in 1918, about a year after John F. Kennedy.

Shriver, who died yesterday at age 88, wrote about her sister in Parade magazine in 1964: "Only if we broaden our understanding can we help the mentally retarded to escape into the sunlight of useful living."

From that resolve later came the Special Olympics, which traces its roots back to a summer day when Shriver started a camp at her home after a mother complained that there was no such place to send her disabled child.

Shriver recalled the conversation in an interview with National Public Radio: "I said, 'You come here a month from today. I'll start my own camp. No charge to go into the camp, but you have to get your kid here, and you have to come and pick your kid up.' "

The first Special Olympics Summer Games was held in Chicago in 1968, weeks after her brother Robert was murdered.

One thousand athletes from 26 states and Canada showed up. Today, more than three million athletes from 180 countries take part in events staged around the world. Watching the kids compete in many of the events can be more moving than watching the traditional Olympics.

Shriver's work with JFK's panel on mental retardation in the 1960s led to the establishment of university research centers on disabilities and medical ethics. Her efforts helped move mental retardation out of the shadows.

"Mental retardation was viewed as a hopeless, shameful disease, and those afflicted with it were shunted from sight as soon as possible," Edward Shorter wrote in his book The Kennedy Family and the Story of Mental Retardation.

President Obama yesterday said Shriver "taught our nation - and our world - that no physical or mental barrier can restrain the power of the human spirit."

She received numerous awards for her life's work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984. In presenting the award, then-President Ronald Reagan said, "With enormous conviction and unrelenting effort, Eunice Kennedy Shriver has labored on behalf of America's least powerful people."

Shriver's son, Robert, succinctly summed up his mother's impact in a 2004 interview with CBS: "My mom never ran for office, and she changed the world. Period. End of story."