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. She also was presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Britain. It was shortly after her stumbling at this event that Joseph had his daughter lobotomized.
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.
Joseph asked the well-known neurologist Walter Freeman to perform a prefrontal lobotomy. Walter Freeman was not a surgeon and did not believe in antiseptics. Instead of producing the desired result, however, the operation reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent, staring blankly at walls for hours; her verbal skills became unintelligible babble and her mood swings continued unabated.
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
External links
- Washington Post obituary
- www.psychosurgery.org About lobotomy victims
- Rosemary Kennedy Photos