Photo: Courtesy JFK Library Foundation
For the first time, two books have answered some of the questions surrounding their separation.
InRosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, authorKate Clifford Larsondescribed how the lobotomy was kept a secret from the family for 20 years.
It began in 1941, when Joe spoke to Rose about the surgery that, he was told, would make Rosemary more docile and “less moody.” At Rose’s request, Rosemary’s younger sister Kathleen researched the procedure — which the American Medical Association eventually warned against — and told her mother, “It’s nothing we want done for Rosie.”
“If Rose told Joe her misgivings about the surgery, he didn’t listen,” wrote Larson. “Without informing her, he ordered the procedure be done as quickly as possible.”
The lobotomy was catastrophic. Rosemary emerged “almost completely disabled,” wrote Larson, with the ability to “only speak a handful of words.”
Rosemary’s younger sister Jean was told that she “had moved to the Midwest and become a teacher,” Larson wrote. The youngest, Ted, feared “he had better do what Dad wanted or the same thing would happen to me.”
It wasn’t until 1961, after Joe had a debilitating stroke that left him unable to speak, that Rosemary’s siblings were told she was living at St. Coletta, the Catholic facility in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she resided from 1949 until her death.
“Joe was told you don’t visit because it’s too emotionally devastating to their routine so that’s what he did,” saidElizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, the author ofThe Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women. “But with their mother now in charge, things began to change. Mrs. Kennedy wanted her to be socialized.”
Eunice, with whom Rosemary was quite close, made regular visits and invited her sister to her home. She also made regular calls to the nuns who cared for her. “Eunice was concerned about her health, how much exercise she was getting, the same as Mrs. Kennedy,” said Koehler-Pentacoff, whose aunt, Sister Paulus Taylor, was Rosemary’s longtime caretaker.
Ted’s visits were more relaxed. “Ted connected with her on an emotional level — not as the parent, not the person who said, ‘You better eat that, or how much exercise did you get,’ " said Koehler-Pentacoff. “He was just concerned with Rosemary having a good time. He was just more easygoing and relaxed. Jean [Kennedy Smith] and Pat [Lawford] also came and had her to their homes. Rosie loved it.”
While author Kate Larson believed JFK briefly went to see Rosemary in 1958 while on the campaign trail, little is known about the visit.
Even after her death, Rosemary’s siblings and family members asked the nuns for information about her, Koehler-Pentacoff said. “They asked, ‘What do you think about Rosemary? What do you think was wrong with her?’ Very basic questions,” said Koehler-Pentacoff. “Rosemary’s siblings really didn’t know the truth. At the time, very little was known about people with mental illness.”
Larson agreed. “Rose and Joe were not compassionate people so how did they raise all those kids to be compassionate people, to do remarkable things for people with disabilities and the disadvantaged?” she asked. “It had to come from somewhere and I think it came from Rosemary.”
source: people.com
