HYANNIS, Mass. -- As condolences and tributes began to pour in from from political, social and religious leaders around the world, the Kennedy clan gathered at its Hyannis Port compound to remember one of the family's beloved matriarchs, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away early Tuesday in a Cape Cod hospital.

"She was a living prayer, a living advocate, a living center of power. She set out to change the world and to change us ... " - Shriver Family Statement

Shriver's body was returned to the compound about noon in black hearse which led an impromptu funeral cortege, with her daughter, California first lady Maria Shriver, riding in the front seat.

The family will hold a private wake at the Hyannis Port compound Tuesday night.

A public wake for Shriver will be held Thursday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville. A private funeral will be held Friday morning at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis.

Her younger brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, arrived for the service just before 6:30 p.m.

Shriver, 88, the founder of the Special Olympics and the sister of President John F. Kennedy, had been in the hospital for the last week, surrounded by family members in her last days. The Shrivers released a statement saying she died at 2 a.m., the news sparking an outpouring of sympathy and condolences.

"She was wonderful. She was very open. Very interested in ways for kids to be involved in the community," her Hyannis Port neighbor Joyce Andrews said.

Her younger brother Ted once described her as a tireless and fearless worker and said when it came to those less fortunate, she could not be stopped.

Shriver founded Special Olympics as a place for those with mental disabilities to excel and be accepted. The participants are sometimes described as having intellectual challenges. Shriver called them her special friends.

To several generations of Special Olympians and their families, Shriver was the one who was special.

Special Olympics

Daniel Lane, 15, of Hyannis, spent a long time on the letter of condolence he left for the Shriver family at the JFK Museum on the Cape.

"Dear Mrs. Shriver, thank you for starting Special Olympics. Have a wonderful life in heaven," he wrote.

His mother accompanied him, talking emotionally about the impact Shriver had on their lives.

"As a mother of a Special Olympian, it's changed his life and it's enriched our lives. If it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have this," Kate Lane said, choking back tears.

Many of those signing the condolence book at the museum had ties to Special Olympics. One man said his granddaughter participates in the program in New Jersey.

"She looks forward every year because they stay over for three days with her mother and it's just a very big part of their lives. If you ever went to one you would be very attached to it," he said.

"What she did with the children, I mean that, to me, is a big accomplishment right there," another museum visitor said.

At the JFK Library in Boston, another tribute table with a condolence book drew visitors as well.

"You want to send your sympathy and your love to them and I think that's all we can do, as a nation and a world, is to give them our support," Madeline Brown of Pennsylvania said.

"She gave her whole heart and soul and life to service," said another visitor who snapped pictures of the condolence book and photos and then penned words of sympathy. Some said her passing was like "another of those strong trees that's gone."

For relatives of the mentally challenged, she will be forever remembered for changing lives.

"It used to be a stigma in society and I saw that growing up and now they're part of our society. They're in our schools, they're playing with my grandchildren, and they're actually ... it's just opened up a whole new world for them," Gigi Hayes-Polk of Chatham, Mass., said.

Cape Neighbors

At her family church, Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, Mass., her sister-in-law Ethel Kennedy called it "a very sad morning."

Eunice and Sargent Shriver sometimes attended the church several times a week when they were at the compound.

"She's been a hero of mine because of her great warmth, compassion, hard work, determination, perseverance for the special needs children," parishioner Barbara Connelly said.

"For someone with her name, the Kennedy name, she has done so much to help underprivileged people and all the Special Olympians. This morning at Mass I was praying for the Special Olympians in her honor," parishioner Arlene Lejava said.

Long Legacy

Shriver was remembered as a strong woman in an ambitious and powerful family, one brother a U.S. president, another U.S. Attorney General and a third an influential U.S. senator. She never took a back seat to any of them.

"I am lucky that I experienced the sting of rejection as a woman who was told that the real power was not for me," Shriver once said in a speech, describing how she came upon her resolve to make a difference in a family full of powerful men.

"After President Kennedy was sworn in, he used to joke that he feared Eunice because Eunice always had an agenda," her brother Ted said.

"We cannot in a way overstate, I would say, mother's determination. I felt her to be extremely determined, very aggressive, super entrepreneurial," her son Timothy said.

"Her fingerprints are on legislation, on schools, on institutions, on perceptions and I think, most importantly, on individual lives," daughter Maria said.

Her friends said her greatest pride was her 55-year marriage to Sargent Shriver, a Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1972 and later an ambassador to France. Together they had 5 children and 19 grandchildren.

In recent years she struggled with health problems and hospitalizations. Last October, she appeared frail in a wheelchair at the dedication of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, which was named in honor of her mother.

Through it all, she remained committed to her goals.

"To make the world safe for people with intellectual disabilities and to make the world safe for human dignity," Shriver said.