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The Kennedy family was a large one. Joseph P. Kennedy Senior, a prominent businessman & politician, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, a philanthropist and socialite, had nine children. There was Joseph Patrick JR (born 25th July 1915), John F (born 29th May 1917), Rose-Marie (born 13th September 1918), Kathleen (born 20th February 1920), Eunice Mary (born 10th July 1921), Patricia (born 6th May 1924), Robert Francis (born 20th November 1925), Jean Ann (born 20th February 1928) and Edward (born 22nd February 1932). Despite their elite position in life, the Kennedy family didn’t have much luck, and it became known as the Kennedy Curse. Joseph JR was groomed to run for president but was killed in action in World War II. John, famously known as President JFK, was assassinated, Robert was assassinated the night he won the California Democratic presidential primary, and his parents-in-law died in a plane crash. Kathleen died in a plane crash whilst travelling to the south of France with her fiancé. Edward survived a car crash, but his companion, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, wasn’t so lucky, thanks to his neglect.
But today, I will talk about the eldest sister, Rosemary, who I think suffered more than any of them. It’s a tragic tale of ignorance and pride causing the downfall of a young, vibrant woman known for her beautiful smile and vivaciousness.
Rose Marie Kennedy (or Rosemary as she was known) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. At the time, World War I was still going on and the world was suffering from the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million worldwide. Due to these circumstances, the physician, DR. Good, couldn’t attend straight away when Rose went into labour with Rosemary. According to the family’s much-loved nursemaid & governess, Luella Hennessey-Donovan, the attending nurse panicked, pushed the baby back, and instructed Rose to close her legs. She was like this for two agonising hours until the doctor arrived. Unfortunately, this led to a deprivation of oxygen for baby Rosemary. Rosemary was a happy enough baby and rarely cried, but as she grew there were signs of an intellectual disability; she wasn’t reaching the same milestones as other children and struggled to read and write. In Rose Kennedy’s memoir, Times to Remember, she wrote, ‘she was slow in everything and some things she seemed unable to learn how to do, or do well or with consistency. When she was old enough for childish sports, I noticed, for instance, that she couldn’t steer her sled. When she was old enough to learn a little reading and writing, the letters and words were extremely difficult for her, and instead of writing from left to right on a page, she wrote in the opposite direction.' One letter that Rosemary wrote read, ‘Dear Santa Clause I am writing to you I want a doll and doll carriage and some paper doll block board little set of dishes your friend rose kennedy 1311 noble rd brookline mass’. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s perfectly acceptable writing and spelling for a young child.
Her parents were overachievers and expected their children to be the same, including Rosemary. She attended the Edward Devotion public school for kindergarten; here, it was suggested that she should repeat kindergarten and first grade. At the age of seven, she wasn’t allowed to return, so she was schooled at home. They thought they could ‘cure’ Rosemary, forcing her to have experimental injections that would supposedly stabilise her hormones and hiring private tutors to teach her. Joseph SR decided to consult the head of the Psychology Department at Harvard University. There she was diagnosed as ‘mentally retarded’ (|I am thoroughly aware of just how offensive that word is, but it’s what was used at the time, and I think it’s important to remember just how far along we have come in society). Institutionalisation was suggested. Her mother wrote: ‘My first reaction was shock and surprise. Like all mothers, I had prayed that my child would be normal and healthy…I had to endure the anguish of every mother who learns that her child will have to face the world with a devastating handicap’. Poor fucking you (I cannot bring myself to show much sympathy at all towards Rose and her husband. You may or may not agree as you read on, but seriously – fuck them). In the end, they sent eleven-year-old Rosemary to a boarding school in Pennsylvania that catered for the intellectually disabled.
Sadly, in the early 20th century, a lot of people believed in eugenics, thinking that certain groups of people, such as the poor or the disabled, carried ‘a bad gene’ – even going as far as to say they shouldn’t be able to breed. Even the Catholic church, of which the Kennedys were a big part, refused Communion and Confirmation to the disabled (and sadly I have read about this happening as recently as 2020). The Kennedys kept very quiet about young Rosemary and her intellectual challenge. They didn’t want to be seen as having passed on ‘the bad gene’, and worried about the church and their social circles shunning them.
Rosemary was 15 years old when she was sent to the Sacred Heart Convent in Elmhurst, Providence, Rhode Island, and the Kennedys gifted them a new tennis court. She was taught separately from her classmates by two nuns and a teacher called Miss Newton. By now, she had the counting, reading, and writing skills of a fourth grader (age 9-10 years old). Rosemary’s brothers, Joseph JR, and John would occasionally accompany her to the local tea dances in the area, which she adored, in a bid to appear ‘not different at all’. I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. Something I found so sad was some of the letters Rosemary sent to her parents whilst at various schools, hidden away. One letter said, ‘I would do anything to make you so happy. I hate to [disappoint] you in any way. Come to see me soon. I get very lonesome every day.' It breaks my heart that this poor young girl was trying her hardest to please her parents, and they still didn’t think she was good enough. Despite this, she was known as a happy, friendly child, always laughing and smiling.
Joseph JR travelled to Germany in 1934 and became caught up in Hitler’s ideology. He wrote to his father, ‘[Hitler] has passed the sterilisation law, which I think is a great thing. I don’t know how the Church feels about it, but it will do away with many of the disgusting specimens of men which inhabit this earth. His father, Joseph SR, replied, ‘I think your conclusions are very sound’. And that tells you all you need to know about Joseph SR and his attitude towards his daughter.
In 1938, Joseph SR was appointed ambassador to the UK, and the family relocated. They moved to 13-14 Princes Gate, an estate overlooking Hyde Park in Knightsbridge, London. While there, the family were called on to attend a ‘coming out’ ceremony to introduce them to the elite society at Buckingham Palace. Most women attending events like this had months to prepare, but Rosemary, who was 19 now, and Kathleen had only two weeks. Despite this, Rosemary did precisely as she had been taught, met King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on May 11th, and, other than a minor stumble, behaved impeccably, spending the night socialising and dancing with many eligible bachelors. The press instantly adored Rosemary and the dress she had debuted in. The Evening Standard wrote, ‘Miss Rosemary Kennedy…in her picture dress of white and tulle embroidered with silver’. She was the public sweetheart, which I read was much to Rose’s annoyance as she hoped Kathleen would overshadow Rosemary.
Her life was soon filled with social occasions such as dances and the opera. In 1939, she joined her family in Rome for the coronation of Pope Pius XII and visited The White House. Her parents told ‘Woman’s Day’, an American magazine, that Rosemary was studying to be a kindergarten teacher, and ‘Parents’, another magazine, that while she had ‘an interest in social welfare work, she is said to harbour a secret longing to go on stage.' When the daily newspaper, The Boston Globe, asked for an interview with Rosemary, an assistant employed by her parents wrote a response for her to copy. It read, ‘I have always had serious tastes and understand life is not given us just for enjoyment. For some time, past, I have been studying the well-known psychological method of DR. Maria Montessori and I got my degree in teaching last year.'
In 1939, Britain declared war on Germany and the family was sent back to the US, but Rosemary remained with Joseph SR and adored having her father's attention. Once the Blitz began, she was sent to Belmont House, a Montessori school away from London. Montessori is an educational method based on hands-on learning and collaborative play. Rosemary loved attending this school and blossomed socially and academically. One of her teachers wrote to Rose & Joseph SR claiming that Rosemary had made ‘remarkable progress’ and ‘there was a great change in her lately’. Joseph SR wrote to Rose, saying ‘she is contented completely to be teaching with Mother Isabel. She is happy, looks better than she ever did in her life, is not the slightest bit lonesome and loves to get letters from [her siblings], telling her how lucky she is to be over here.' I read that apparently, during this time, a close school friend of Rosemary’s wrote to Joseph SR, ‘Please God that someday he will grant you the joy of a perfect healing for her.' Unfortunately, due to the increasing attacks in Europe, Rosemary, now 22, had to return to the States in 1940.
Sadly, Rosemary stopped making progress once she was back in the US. Rosemary began having violent seizures and fits of uncontrollable rage, even becoming physical towards people. It was reported in the book The Kennedys: An American Drama that Rosemary ‘suddenly attacked Honey Fitz (the family nickname for her maternal grandfather), hitting & kicking her tiny, white-haired grandfather until she was pulled away’. She was expelled from a Summer camp and only stayed at a Philadelphia boarding school for a few months before being sent to a convent in Washington, D.C. Rosemary didn’t like being at the convent and started to rebel. Her cousin, Ann Gargan, remembered ‘many nights the school would call to say she was missing, only to find her out walking around the streets at 2 a.m.' The convent believed she was escaping to meet men, and the nuns worried about her becoming pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease (she probably just wanted to be able to live her life like her siblings were allowed to). Rather than being concerned with his daughter and considering what might be causing her rebelliousness, her father was more worried about the family’s reputation and how it might affect his sons’ political careers.
Joseph SR began looking at more permanent ‘cures’, including surgical options. An article in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1941 told of DR. Walter Freeman’s ‘pioneering’ work to cure those who were ‘problems to their families and nuisances to themselves’. He had a surgical procedure to turn these individuals into ‘useful members of society’. Sadly, this surgery was a lobotomy.
Prefrontal lobotomies were being advertised as a therapy for mental disorders, criminals, people with an addiction, homosexuals (now known as the LGBTQ community, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning), and women who were considered to be promiscuous. The surgery considered had only been used for three years in America. 80% of the patients were women, and 9% of patients died as a direct result of the procedure. The American Medical Association strongly advised against the procedure due to the lack of research that had gone into it. I did read, although I’m not sure if it’s true or not, that DR. Freeman and his colleague, DR. James W. Watts, would prey on mental health institutions for patients (victims?) to practice on. Many people with mental health conditions had been abandoned by their families, so if the surgery were botched, there would be no one to complain. There were also reports that Freeman wasn’t a surgeon but a professor who ‘thrived on horror and fascination’.
Without consulting his wife (although there are some debates about this, and some people say she was more than aware), he booked for his daughter to have a lobotomy performed by Freeman and Watts. There is no record at all of Rosemary being consulted or giving consent. Watts later told author Ronald Kessler what happened: ‘We went through the top of the head, I think Rosemary was awake. She had a mild tranquilliser. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch.’ The instrument DR. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. ‘We put an instrument inside’, he said. As DR. Watts cut, DR. Freeman asked Rosemary some questions. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer, sing ‘God Bless America,’ or count backwards. ‘We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded.’ When Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped.
Watts had believed that Rosemary was suffering from depression and not an intellectual disability as initially thought. Later, papers that had been written by the doctors about the case were reviewed, and the consensus was that he was correct in his diagnosis of depression.
Sadly, the operation went hideously wrong, and it was evident immediately. Instead of the calm, sedate, happy woman the surgery had promised, she was a woman with the mental ability of a two-year-old. Rosemary could no longer walk, converse coherently and had been left incontinent. The left-hand side of her body was partially paralysed, and her head was permanently tilted to her left shoulder. The fingers on her left hand were curled and rendered useless. I read one account that the nurse assisting during the operation was so traumatised that she left the profession altogether. Her father immediately sent her to live at a private psychiatric hospital, Craig House, where she stayed for a few years. This caused some confusion amongst the siblings, but Joseph SR would tell them that Rosemary was quite happy where she was. In 1949, she was sent to the St Coletta School for Exceptional Children. I read that this is because Joseph SR had found out she was being sexually abused whilst at Craig House. Her father had a private cottage, known as The Kennedy Cottage, built on the grounds for her (how very gracious of him). At St Coletta, Rosemary significantly improved thanks to the help of Sister Paulus, a nun who came to love Rosemary and became her primary caregiver. She was even allowed to have pets, a canary named Skippy and a poodle called Lollie. She was popular with staff and residents alike and adored being the centre of attention.
The lobotomy had been kept a secret from the rest of the family and her brothers & sisters didn’t know of Rosemary’s whereabouts. They didn’t publicly speak about her absence until John F had been elected President in 1961, then explaining it away as her being reclusive. Not the truth that an awful, experimental surgery had butchered her. It was in the same year that Joseph SR had a stroke, leaving him unable to speak, and he eventually died in 1969, having never visited his daughter after the lobotomy. The family learnt of the whereabouts of Rosemary. Rose visited her daughter after not seeing her for twenty years; I’ve read different accounts of Rosemary’s reaction. Some say she visibly recoiled from her mother, and others say she beat her on her chest whilst screaming at her. However, Rose permitted the nuns to take Rosemary outside the convent. They would take her shopping and to tea rooms, which she enjoyed. By this time, Rosemary had regained the ability to walk, although with a limp, but her ability to converse never fully returned. Some family members started to visit regularly, much to Rosemary’s delight.
Her sister Eunice later founded Camp Shriver in 1962, which, in time, became the Special Olympics. Eunice’s son, Anthony Shivers, founded Best Buddies in 1989. Best Buddies is a charity that provides disabled people with a mentor and the opportunity to work. His brother, Timothy, became CEO of the Special Olympics after Eunice stepped down. Rosemary is believed to be the inspiration.
Rosemary died of natural causes on 7th January 2005 at the age of 86. Family surrounded her in the Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin. She is buried in Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts, next to her parents.
And that is the awful story of Rosemary Kennedy. These days, she would have been supported and gone on to live a full life. She could have lived a full life then, but her father and his reluctance to admit one of his children was less than perfect (in his eyes) ripped that opportunity away from her. Thank you for reading, as always please let me know what you think in the comments, take care of yourselves and I will see you soon.
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