Members of the Kennedy family gathered Monday for the funeral of Ethel Kennedy, wife of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Ethel Kennedy, who raised her 11 children after her husband’s assassination and continued to support social causes and the family’s legacy, died Thursday at age 96.

Monday’s funeral, which was not open to the public, was held at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, about 70 miles south of Boston.

Mourners gathered at the church under a cool gray sky. Ethel Kennedy died as a result of a stroke she suffered earlier this month.

“In addition to her lifelong commitment to social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her very much,” the family statement announcing her death said.

Her son, former Congressman Joe Kennedy II, remembered his mother as a fighter for justice on Monday.

“She taught us to always intervene, always recover and engage in the fight to make this world a little better,” he told reporters outside the church on Monday.

He said his mother always told her children to do the right thing and praised their kindness.

“That’s what she taught, that’s her legacy, and she did it with a smile on her face and made everyone laugh and have fun, and that was her secret – just making sure that when you fight for it, you fight for it.” Poor , you do it with a smile and make everyone feel like it’s the right thing to do. And that’s what made me love her so much,” he said.

The Kennedy matriarch, mother of Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy belonged. Her family said she had enjoyed seeing many of her relatives recently before she became ill.

Ethel Kennedy, the daughter of a millionaire who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950, had, by the age of 40, as the whole world saw, suffered more deaths than most people would in a lifetime.

She was at Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, shortly after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California. Her brother-in-law had been murdered in Dallas less than five years earlier.

Ethel Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights shortly after her husband’s death and advocated for causes such as gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s murder.