Rosemary Kennedy

Rose Marie Kennedy (September 13, 1918 – January 7, 2005) was the third child and first daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, born a year after U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Although she was christened Rose Marie Kennedy, she was commonly known as Rosemary. To her family and friends, she was known as Rosie.

Rosemary was a shy and reportedly mentally slow child, symptoms which some believe point to dyslexia or some slight brain damage at birth. I.Q. tests reportedly indicated a mild retardation. Diaries written by Rosemary in the late 1930s and published in the 1980s, however, reveal a sunny, slightly backward young woman whose life was filled with outings to the opera, tea dances, dress fittings, and other social interests.

"Went to luncheon in the ballroom in the White House. James Roosevelt took us in to see his father, President Roosevelt. He said, 'It's about time you came. How can I put my arm around all of you? Which is the oldest? You are all so big."'

"Have a fitting at 10:15 Elizabeth Arden. Appointment dress fitting again. Home for lunch. Royal tournament in the afternoon."

"Up too late for breakfast. Had it on deck. Played Ping-Pong with Ralph's sister, also with another man. Had lunch at 1:15. Walked with Peggy. also went to horse races with her, and bet and won a dollar and a half. Went to the English Movie at five. Had dinner at 8:45. Went to the lounge with Miss Cahill and Eunice and retired early." (fair use quotation)

She also was "presented" to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Britain. On her way out of the "presentation" she tripped and almost fell — an embarassing faux pas.

Placid and easygoing as a child and teenager, however, the maturing Rosemary became increasingly assertive in her personality and subject to violent mood swings that some observers have since attributed to her difficulties in keeping up with her active siblings as well as the hormonal surges associated with sexual maturation. In any case, the family had difficulty dealing with the often stormy Rosemary — she had begun to engage in physical fights and to sneak out at night from the convent where she was being educated and cared for — and feared that without the proper supervision or medical treatment, she might become pregnant or perhaps publicly embarrass the family in another fashion.

In 1941, when Rosemary was 23, her father was told by doctors that a lobotomy would help his mildly retarded daughter to calm her "mood swings that the family found difficult to handle at home." [1] Joseph Kennedy had the procedure done by the neurologist Walter Freeman, the director of the laboratories at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. According to author Laurence Leamer, Rosemary Kennedy was "probably the first person with mental retardation in America to receive a prefrontal lobotomy." [2] In Kennedy's case, instead of producing the desired result, the operation reduced her to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent, staring blankly at walls for hours; her verbal skills became unintelligible babble. Although Freeman performed more than 3,000 lobotomies on individuals with mental illness during his career,[3] today, his lobotomy treatments are completely discredited in the eyes of the mental health community.

Rosemary Kennedy inspired her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver's work with the Special Olympics.

She lived at St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children in Jefferson, Wisconsin, a residential institution for disabled people, but visited relatives in other states. She died at the St. Coletta School at the age of 86, with her surviving sisters and brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, by her side. Hers was, and, currently, is, the only natural death among the deceased children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.

See also

• List of well-known U.S. presidential relatives

References

• Burns, James MacGregor, John Kennedy: A Political Profile, Harcourt Brace, 1960
• El-Hai, Jack, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness (Wiley, 2004). ISBN 0471232920
• Gibson, Barbara, Rose Kennedy and Her Family: The Best and Worst of Their Lives and Times, Birch Lane Press, ISBN 1559722991. This book includes Rose Marie's diary from 1936-38. Gibson was Rose Kennedy's secretary. [4]
• Kennedy, Rose, Times to Remember, 1974, Doubleday, ISBN 0385476574
• Kessler, Ronald, The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded, Warner, 1996, ISBN 0446603848
• Leamer, Laurence, The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family (Ballantine, 1996).
• McCarthy, Joe, The Remarkable Kennedys
• McTaggart, Lynne, Kathleen Kennedy, Doubleday, 1983
• Valenstein, Elliot S. Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness (Basic Books, 1986).

External link

• Washington Post obituary January 8, 2005
• Rosemary Kennedy Bio & Photos Posted at fatboy.cc, an anti-Ted Kennedy site featuring political satire and Kennedy-related photographs.