Joseph P. Kennedy, the American dreamer who created his own dynasty, demanded that his four sons make an impact in the world. Eunice, Joes third daughter, was limited by her gender. Her father once lamented, in memorably salty language, that if Eunice were a boy shed be president.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died Tuesday at 88, didnt have to be president or senator, or attorney general to be transformative. Her role in advancing the prospects of people with disabilities went well beyond the Special Olympics, her signature initiative. She began talking about the possibilities of people with disabilities in the 1960s, when many believed that people with mental retardation werent even fit to live with their families.

Shrivers efforts for the disabled 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 sisters condition to the nation during her brothers presidency in a 1962 article for the Saturday Evening Post.

The truth is that … the retarded are capable of becoming useful citizens with the help of special education and rehabilitation, Shriver wrote.

Shrivers achievements often register as a footnote to the larger Kennedy drama. But in a family where glory was a compound measured in equal parts politics and testosterone, Shriver blazed a shining path of her own.

Shriver had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at a hospital on Cape Cod in the company of her husband, her five children and her 19 grandchildren, her family said.

She understood deeply the lesson our mother and father taught us: Much is expected of those to whom much has been given, said her sole surviving brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is battling a brain tumor.

Shriver was also the sister of President John F. Kennedy and 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.

With her death, Jean Kennedy Smith becomes the last surviving Kennedy daughter. Other survivors include her husband and the couples children.