Obama recalls Shriver work with disabled

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. President Obama said Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sibling of a president and two senators, would be remembered for her work on behalf of the mentally disabled.

Shriver, 88, sister of President John H. Kennedy and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and the late Sen. Robert Kennedy, D-N.Y., and founder of the Special Olympics, died Tuesday in a Cape Cod, Mass., hospital.

"Eunice was many things to many people" and would be remembered as a wife who supported her husband in the Peace Corps and as a member of one of America's storied families, Obama said in a statement.

"But above all, she will be remembered as the founder of the Special Olympics, as a champion for people with intellectual disabilities, and as an extraordinary woman who, as much as anyone, taught our nation -- and our world -- that no physical or mental barrier can restrain the power of the human spirit," Obama said.

Obama said he and his wife were "deeply saddened" by Shriver's death and offered their thoughts and prayers to her husband, Sargent, her children and the Kennedy family.