Dozens line up outside Cape Cod church to pay tribute to Eunice Kennedy Shriver at wake

Dozens line up to remember Eunice Shriver at wake

BARNSTABLE, Mass. — Dozens of people, including some Special Olympians holding yellow flowers, lined up Thursday outside a white and gray clapboard church to take part in a six-hour public wake for Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

The hearse carrying Shriver’s body, followed closely by members of her family, arrived shortly after noon at Our Lady of Victory Roman Catholic Church in the Centerville section of Barnstable. The church is where Shriver regularly attended services and was the site of the 1986 wedding of Caroline Kennedy, President Kennedy’s daughter, to Edwin Schlossberg.

Family members attended a private wake before the doors opened to the public.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, was not expected to attend, a spokesman said. The senator’s schedule was day-to-day and it was unclear if he would attend Friday invitation-only funeral Mass at St. Francis Xavier church in Hyannis, spokesman Keith Maley said.

Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at Cape Cod Hospital on Tuesday in the company of her husband, her five children and her 19 grandchildren.

She was also the sister of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy; the wife of 1972 vice presidential candidate R. Sargent Shriver; the mother of former NBC newswoman Maria Shriver; and the mother-in-law of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Speaking outside the church, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Shriver was a great humanitarian and was proud of her legacy as the founder of the Special Olympics.

“She was obviously proud, but always wanted more,” Kennedy said. “She saw value in every human being.”

Shriver’s creation of the Special Olympics and her efforts to bring the mentally disabled into the mainstream were inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary, who was given a lobotomy at age 23 and spent the rest of her life in an institution.

Shriver revealed her sister’s condition to the nation during her brother’s presidency in a 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post.

Now more than 3 million athletes in more than 160 countries participate in Special Olympics. Well into her 70s, she remained a daily presence at the Special Olympics headquarters.

Robert Johnson, president and chief executive of Special Olympics Massachusetts, said he was grateful that the public was given an opportunity to thank Shriver.

“Hero wouldn’t be a proper word to describe her,” Johnson said. “She needs a word greater than that.”

Special Olympics said that more than 103,500 people had visited the Web site eunicekennedyshriver.org since her death and more than 2,800 people had posted personal tributes to her.

In a message sent Thursday on Twitter, Schwarzenegger said his mother-in-law might well have wanted to focus the attention elsewhere.

“Being here right now, I can just hear Eunice saying, ‘Don’t make this so much about me. Make this a call to service.’” Schwarzenegger wrote.

Shriver was the recipient of numerous honors, including the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received from President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Her brother Edward received the same award Wednesday from President Barack Obama. Because he was unable to attend, his daughter, Kara, accepted the award on his behalf.