Sargent Shriver Remembered at Wake in D.C.
WASHINGTON - Former colleagues, friends and admirers gathered Friday to remember R. Sargent Shriver, an in-law of the Kennedys and the first director of the Peace Corps.
Hundreds filled Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., and filed past the casket and photos from Shriver's life to offer his family their condolences.
"He was the finest man I think I ever met in my life," said Gene Theroux, 72, of Loudoun County, Va., who worked at the Office of Economic Advancement, where Shriver served as director in the 1960s. "He was full of positive energy."
"He took a thankless job at President Johnson's request to run the poverty program," Theroux said. And though many of the programs were unpopular, Shriver was able to bring people together to get them off the ground, he said.
The wake was a way to witness history for Carolyn Hill, 74, of Washington.
"I go to everything I can just to be part of history," she said. "Especially when it's people I like."
Rep. Steny Hoyer, former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and journalist Bill Moyers, who wrote the foreword to a biography of Shriver and worked at the Peace Corps with him, were expected to eulogize Shriver Friday night. Other speakers include Colman McCarthy, who served as a speech writer for Shriver and other friends with Peace Corps connections, C. Payne Lucas and Maureen Orth.
Also attending were Sen. John Kerry, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, AOL co-founder Steve Case, musician Wyclef Jean, White House senior adviser David Axelrod, and singer and actress Vanessa Williams.
Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton were scheduled to speak at a funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Md. First lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey will also attend. Shriver will be buried late Saturday in the same cemetery in Hyannis, Mass., as his wife, Eunice, who died in 2009, according to Rev. Daniel W. Lacroix, pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church.
Shriver was the brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward Kennedy, and, late in life, father-in-law of actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Shriver died Tuesday after being hospitalized for several days in his native Maryland. He was 95 and had suffered from Alzheimer's disease since at least 2003.
The businessman and lawyer helped his late wife and Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver — a sister of JFK and Edward Kennedy — run the organization that allows disabled people to participate in sports.
Shriver helped fulfill one of President Kennedy's campaign promises to start the Peace Corps and ended up building an international institution. He later ran the War on Poverty, part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
Shriver was George McGovern's running mate in the 1972 election, but the Democrats lost in a landslide to President Richard M. Nixon. In 1994, Shriver received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
The Shrivers had five children Maria, Anthony, Robert, Timothy and Mark. Mark Shriver was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1995 and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002. They also had 19 grandchildren.