Community Corner

R. Sargent Shriver Dies at 95

Former Peace Corps director had been recently admitted to Suburban Hospital.

R. Sargent Shriver, a former Peace Corps director and vice presidential nominee, has died at 95.

Shriver had recently been admitted to in Bethesda. Shriver announced that he had Alzheimer’s disease in 2003.

Shriver was married to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of the late president John F. Kennedy and founder of the Special Olympics. Eunice Kennedy Shriver died in 2009. One of his children is Maria Shriver, a journalist and the former first lady of California.

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The Shrivers lived in Potomac for more than two decades. Before being admitted to Suburban Hospital, Shriver lived at Sunrise at Fox Hill in Bethesda. Several of his children live in the area -- his son Timothy Perry Shriver lives in Chevy Chase, and his son Mark Kennedy Shriver is a Bethesda resident. 

The Shriver family has released this statement:

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Our dad, Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., lovingly known as “Sarge,” today went to heaven to join the love of his life, our mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. He was surrounded by his five children, five children in-law, and his 19 grandchildren. 

He was a man of giant love, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment. He lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place. He centered everything on his faith and his family.  He worked on stages both large and small but in the end, he will be best known for his love of others. No one ever came into his presence without feeling his passion and his enthusiasm for them. He loved God, he loved Eunice, he loved us, he loved anyone who was a servant of peace, justice or joy. He loved life.

We pray that his spirit and example will guide us as we accept the challenge of living as he did. We will miss him forever. May the angels and saints and all his family receive him with a party beyond all imagining.

More information on Shriver's life is available at www.sargentshriver.org. In lieu of flowers, the Shriver family has requested that donations be made to the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute through the site.

This story has been updated.


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