Mourners remember Shriver

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Among the steady stream of mourners who flowed into a white and gray clapboard church Thursday to pay their respects to Eunice Kennedy Shriver was Mike Rhodes, a 25-year-old mentally disabled man who left a handmade card for the founder of the Special Olympics.

On it was written a simple message: “She taught us to stand tall.”

Hundreds turned out for a six-hour public wake at Our Lady of Victory Roman Catholic Church, where Shriver regularly attended services and where President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, was married to Edward Schlossberg in 1986. Shriver’s coffin was surrounded by Kennedy family photos — many featuring family members with world leaders — and pictures of Shriver from the Special Olympics.

Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward 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.

Loretta Claiborne, 55, a Special Olympian, described Shriver as a friend, and said she left a legacy of helping all kinds of people.

“When I was standing at her casket, I put my head down and said, ‘God, let me be part of this legacy to keep her legacy going,’” Claiborne said.

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

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.