Rose Marie "Rosemary" Kennedy

1918 - 2005  (86 years)  Submit Photo / Document    Has more than 100 ancestors but no descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Rose Marie Kennedy
  Nickname	Rosemary
  Birth	13 Sep 1918	Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
  Gender	Female
  FamilySearch ID	LZNR-GPG
  Death	7 Jan 2005	Jefferson, Jefferson, Wisconsin, United States
  Burial	Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States
  Headstones	Submit Headstone Photo
  Person ID	I168340	mytree
  Last Modified	25 Feb 2024

  
  

  Father	Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy,   b. 6 Sep 1888, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States d. 18 Nov 1969, Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States (Age 81 years)
  Mother	Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald,   b. 22 Jul 1890, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States d. 22 Jan 1995, Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States (Age 104 years)
  Marriage	7 Oct 1914	Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States
  Family ID	F42361	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 13 Sep 1918 - Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States Death - 7 Jan 2005 - Jefferson, Jefferson, Wisconsin, United States Burial - - Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  Rose Marie "Rosemary" Kennedy (September 13, 1918 – January 7, 2005) w a s the eldest daughter born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgeral d K ennedy. She was a sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Ro ber t F. and Ted Kennedy. In her early young adult years, Rosemary Kennedy experienced seizures a n d violent mood swings. In response to these issues, her father arrang e d a prefrontal lobotomy for her in 1941 when she was 23 years of age; t h e procedure left her permanently incapacitated and rendered her unabl e t o speak intelligibly. Rosemary Kennedy spent most of the rest of her life being cared for at S t . Coletta, an institution in Jefferson, Wisconsin. The truth about he r si tuation and whereabouts was kept secret for decades. While she was i nitia lly isolated from her siblings and extended family following her lo botomy , Rosemary did go on to visit them during her later life. Born at her parents' home in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was the thi r d child and first daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgeral d . She was named after her mother and was commonly called Rosemary or Ro si e. During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available becaus e o f an outbreak to the Spanish influenza epidemic and the nurse ordere d Ros e Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to sta y in th e birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful los s of oxy gen. As Rosemary began to grow, her parents noticed she was no t reachin g the basic development steps an infant or a toddler normally r eaches a t a certain month or year. At two years old, she had a hard tim e sittin g up, crawling, and learning to walk. Accounts of Rosemary's life indicated that she was intellectually disabl e d, although some have raised questions about the Kennedys' accounts o f th e nature and scope of her disability. A biographer wrote that Rose K enned y did not confide in her friends and that she pretended her daughte r wa s developing typically, with relatives other than the immediate fami ly kn owing nothing of Rosemary's reported low IQ. Despite the help of tu tors , Rosemary had trouble learning to read and write. At age 11, she wa s sen t to a Pennsylvania boarding school for the intellectually disabled . At age 15, Rosemary was sent to the Sacred Heart Convent in Elmhurst, Pr o vidence, Rhode Island, where she was educated separately from the othe r s tudents. Two nuns and a special teacher, Miss Newton, worked with he r al l day in a separate classroom. The Kennedys gave the school a new te nni s court for their efforts. Her reading, writing, spelling, and counti ng s kills were reported to be at a fourth-grade level. During this perio d, he r mother arranged for her older brother John to accompany her t o a tea-da nce. Thanks to him, she appeared "not different at all" durin g the dance. Rosemary read few books but could read Winnie-the-Pooh. Diaries writte n b y her in the late 1930s, and published in the 1980s, reveal a young w oma n whose life was filled with outings to the opera, tea dances, dres s fitt ings, and other social interests. Kennedy accompanied her family t o the c oronation of Pope Pius XII in Rome in 1939. She also visited th e White Ho use. Kennedy's parents told Woman's Day that she was "studyin g to be a ki ndergarten teacher," and Parents was told that while she ha d "an interes t in social welfare work, she is said to harbor a secret lo nging to go o n the stage." When The Boston Globe requested an intervie w with Rosemary , her father's assistant prepared a response which Rosema ry copied out la boriously: I have always had serious tastes and understand life is not given u s j ust for enjoyment. For some time past, I have been studying the wel l know n psychological method of Dr. Maria Montessori and I got my degre e in tea ching last year. In 1938, Kennedy was presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth a t B uckingham Palace during her father's service as the United States Amb assa dor to the United Kingdom. Kennedy practiced the complicated royal c urts y for hours. At the event, she tripped and nearly fell. Rose Kenned y neve r discussed the incident and treated the debut as a triumph. The c rowd ma de no sign, and the King and the Queen smiled as if nothing had h appened. According to Rosemary's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, when Rosemary ret u rned to the United States from the United Kingdom in 1940, she regresse d ; Shriver later stated that Rosemary became "'increasingly irritable a n d difficult'" at the age of 22. Rosemary would often experience convuls io ns and fly into violent rages in which she would hit and injure other s du ring this period. After being expelled from a summer camp in wester n Mass achusetts and staying only a few months at a Philadelphia boardin g school , Rosemary was sent to a convent school in Washington, D.C Rosem ary bega n sneaking out of the convent school at night. The nuns at the c onvent th ought that Rosemary might be involved with sexual partners, an d that sh e could contract a sexually transmitted disease or become pregn ant. Her o ccasionally erratic behavior frustrated her parents; her fathe r was espec ially worried that Rosemary's behavior would shame and embarr ass the fami ly and damage his and his children's political careers. When Rosemary was 23 years old, doctors told her father that a form of p s ychosurgery known as a lobotomy would help calm her mood swings and st o p her occasional violent outbursts. Joseph Kennedy decided that Rosema r y should have a lobotomy; however, he did not inform his wife of this d ec ision until after the procedure was completed. The procedure took plac e i n November 1941. In Ronald Kessler's 1996 biography of Joseph Kennedy , Si ns of the Father, James W. Watts, who carried out the procedure wit h Walt er Freeman (both of George Washington University School of Medicin e), des cribed the procedure to Kessler as follows: After Rosemary was mildly sedated, "We went through the top of the he a d," Dr. Watts recalled. "I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquil iz er. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It wa s nea r the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, n o mor e than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butte r knife . He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrum ent insi de", he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman asked Rosemary som e questions . For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or si ng "God Bles s America" or count backward... "We made an estimate on ho w far to cut ba sed on how she responded." When Rosemary began to becom e incoherent, the y stopped. Dr. Watts told Kessler that in his opinion, Rosemary had suffered not fr o m mental retardation but rather from a form of depression. A review o f al l of the papers written by the two doctors confirmed Dr. Watts' decl arati on. All of the patients the two doctors lobotomized were diagnose d as hav ing some form of mental disorder. Dr. Bertram S. Brown, directo r of the N ational Institute of Mental Health who was previously an aid e to Presiden t Kennedy, told Kessler that Joe Kennedy referred to his da ughter Rosemar y as mentally retarded rather than mentally ill in order t o protect John' s reputation for a presidential run, and that the family' s "lack of suppo rt for mental illness is part of a lifelong family denia l of what was rea lly so". It quickly became apparent that the procedure had not been successful. K e nnedy's mental capacity diminished to that of a two-year-old child. Sh e c ould not walk or speak intelligibly and was incontinent. After the lobotomy, Rosemary was immediately institutionalized. She init i ally lived for several years at Craig House, a private psychiatric hosp it al 90 minutes north of New York City. In 1949, she was relocated to Je ffe rson, Wisconsin, where she lived for the rest of her life on the grou nd s of the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children (formerly known a s " St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth"). Archbishop Richard Cushin g ha d told her father about St. Coletta's, an institution for more tha n 300 p eople with disabilities, and her father traveled to and built a p rivate h ouse for her about a mile outside St. Coletta's main campus nea r Alvern o House, which was designed for adults who needed lifelong care . The nun s called the house "the Kennedy cottage". Two Catholic nuns, Si ster Marga ret Ann and Sister Leona, provided her care along with a stude nt and a wo man who worked on ceramics with Rosemary three nights a week . Rosemary ha d a car that could be used to take her for rides and a do g which she coul d take on walks. In response to her condition, Rosemary's parents separated her from he r f amily. Rose Kennedy did not visit her for 20 years. Joseph P. Kenned y Sr . did not visit his daughter at the institution. In Rosemary: The Hi dde n Kennedy Daughter, author Kate Clifford Larson stated that Rosemary' s lo botomy was hidden from the family for 20 years; none of her sibling s kne w of her whereabouts. While her older brother John was campaignin g for re -election for the Senate in 1958, the Kennedy family explained a way her a bsence by claiming she was reclusive. The Kennedy family did no t publicl y explain her absence until 1961, after John had been elected p resident . The Kennedys did not reveal that she was institutionalized bec ause o f a failed lobotomy, but instead said that she was deemed "mentall y retar ded". In 1961, after Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. suffered a stroke tha t left hi m unable to speak and walk, Rosemary's siblings were made awar e of her lo cation. Her lobotomy did not become public knowledge until 19 87. Following her father's death in 1969, the Kennedys gradually involved Ro s emary in family life again. Rosemary was occasionally taken to visit re la tives in Florida and Washington, D.C., and to her childhood home on Ca p e Cod. By that time, Rosemary had learned to walk again, but did so wi t h a limp. She never regained the ability to speak clearly, and her ar m wa s palsied. Rosemary died at Ft Atkinson Memorial Hospital.