Rosemary Kennedy - Daughter in Exile — Disability Throughout History

I chose the title for this post very intentionally: it is true that Rosemary Kennedy was abandoned and forgotten, that she became like a ghost to her family. But exile… she was very intentionally separated from her home and family. The final time this happened was when she was moved to Wisconsin at around 30 years old, but the first time goes back to her childhood. She was born in the era, that we are still coming out of, that emphasized separation. While Rosemary was not institutonalized as soon as her delays became evident, she was separated from her identity as a person with disabilities. That part of her was not supposed to exist. Her parents fought to keep that identity secret and, when it could not be, sent her to various schools to have them fight that battle. When the school didn’t succeed, Rosemary was sent away to another one. Her father’s last desperate attempt to “cure” his daughter ended up destroying her. Her disabilities were so profound that he could not separate them and his daughter anymore, deciding she needed to be institutionalized. He purposefully did not tell his family where she was, completing her banishment.

Rose Marie “Rosemary” or “Rosie” Kennedy was born on September 13, 1918, the third child and first daughter of Joseph “Joe” Patrick Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald. She was delivered at home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her family was a prosperous one: her father, a businessman and politician of flexible ethics, was influential in Boston high society. Being that the couple was Catholic, they eventually had nine children in total over a span of seventeen years, even with Joe’s constant extramarital affairs. When Rosemary was born, her brother Joseph Jr. was three and brother John was about eighteen months old. The next child, Kathleen “Kick,” would be born another eighteen months after her sister.

*Rose and her three eldest children: Joseph Jr., Rosemary, and John*

Rosemary was unfortunately born at the exact wrong time. Her mother went into labor during a Spanish Influenza outbreak in the area. The nurse demanded that Rose keep her legs closed until the doctor could arrive and, when that wasn’t enough, the nurse forcibly held Rosemary’s head in the birth canal for two hours. This caused perinatal asphyxia (a lack of oxygen), resulting in brain damage. Infants who experience perinatal aspyhxia tend to be delayed in meeting developmental milestones and have deficits with learning, memory, attention, and executive functioning. Along with intellectual disability, there are often high rates of anxiety, rigidity, and difficulty with emotional regulation.

Though we can never know exactly the damage done to Rosemary or the true extent of her disability, the description above appears to match what information we have about her. Her parents noticed fairly quickly that she was not meeting developmental milestones and was being surpassed by her younger sisters. Even at the age of two, she was still struggling to sit up independently, crawl, and walk. She later also experienced “fits” or “convulsions,” most likely seizures related to her condition. These happened especially when Rosemary was angry or confused, often after her siblings went out without her. These continued as an adult, especially during times of strong emotion or stress. Throughout childhood, she was frequently taken to many different doctor’s appointments. They diagnosed Rosemary with “mental retardation,” “genetic accident,” and “uterine accident.” They sometimes gave her experimental injections meant to treat “hormonal imbalances.”

This time period was the height of eugenics. Most people with disabilities were institutionalized, often immediately after birth, and sterilized. Having a child like this was a source of great shame, especially amongst the upper class. Once that child was institutionalized, they were usually intentionally forgotten and never mentioned again. Even the Catholic Church, an important part of the Kennedy culture, refused Communion and Confirmation for those with disabilities. This worsened with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s: Hitler promoted sterilization and eventually elimination of people with disabilities. Even Rosemary’s brother, Joe Jr., wrote to his father in 1934 that Hitler’s sterilization policy was “a great thing” that “will do away with many of the disgusting specimens of men.”

This was the world into which Rosemary was born and raised. Her parents decided that, instead of institutionalization, they would make her (appear as) normal. According to what one daughter told the public, Joe said, “What can they do in an institution that we can’t do better for her at home - here with her family?” Joe and Rose did not confide in anyone, even relatives, about Rosemary’s disabilities and kept up the facade that she was developing typically. Joe would even have his sons pass along news of what their classmates thought of her, making sure that no one could tell she was disabled. She was never allowed out of the house alone and often ran away in rebellion.

Rose Kennedy was a formidable woman, especially when it came to her children. She was not a warm, cuddly mother, but approached motherhood as a serious job. She was raising their children to be even more successful in business and politics as their father. She and Joe had incredibly strict expectations and demanded that their children excel in high society.

*The Kennedy family at home, mid-1930s*
*(Front row from L: Joseph Jr., Rose, Bobby, Ted, Joe Sr., Pat, and Jean; Back row from L: Eunice, John, Kick, and Rosemary)*

These high expectations included Rosemary. She attended public school for the early grades, but had trouble keeping up and had to repeat kindergarten and first grade. Rose, along with tutors, devoted extra time to bring Rosemary up to their standards. Even with this extra time and attention, she still struggled to learn to read and write. Reportedly, her academic and cognitive skills got to an approximate fourth grade (ages 9-10) level after all of her schooling was completed. She never read much, but could read books such as Winne-the-Pooh. And, as a young adult in the late 1930s, she even kept diaries. She also wrote letters, such as one in 1940 to her father: “I am so fond of you. And I love you so very much.”

Rose described her eldest daughter as “an affectionate, warmly responsive, and loving girl. She was so willing to try to do her best, so appreciative of attention and compliments, and so hopeful of deserving them.” She made sure her athletic children included Rosemary in everything they did: “So if they were running out to go play tennis, it was always like, ‘Make sure Rosemary is going with you.’” She tried hard to keep up with her siblings, though never quite could. Her siblings were all very competitive and tried to live up to their parents’ high demands. This caused much challenge and frustration for her.

At the age of 11, Rosemary was sent to Devereux School, a Pennsylvania boarding school for people with intellectual disabilities. This school wouldn’t let her go home for Thanksgiving that year because her behavior not deemed good enough to have earned it. Rosemary wrote home, “I’m trying to be good. I want to come home for Thanksgiving. Please, will you tell Mrs. Devereux that I can come home for Thanksgiving?” A later letter to her father read, “I would do anything to make you so happy. I hate to [disappoint] you in any way. Come to see me very soon. I get very lonesome everyday.”

It was the first of five schools she would go to over the next ten years. When a school didn’t perform the way Joe and Rose wanted, meaning she wasn’t catching up to her peers, they pulled Rosemary and sent her somewhere else. They had the unrealistic expectation that the “right” school would “cure” their daughter. Often they did not inform even her teachers of her challenges ahead of time, wanting her to be treated as “normal,” though it was quickly apparent she had needs that her peers did not. Her parents didn’t understand that the separation from her family and constant transitions were difficult for her to endure. It took longer for Rosemary to adjust to changes and it was unfair of them to expect her to cope with them quickly and frequently. She would write pleas to her parents, saying, “I’m trying so hard. If I’m good, can I come home?” She wrote to her younger sisters, “Now, I want you to write me a letter. You be a good girl and write.”

When Rosemary was just turning 16, she was moved to the Sacred Heart Convent in Providence, Rhode Island. There, she was educated, separately from the other students, by two nuns and a Special Education teacher, Miss Newton. In exchange for all of this special attention, her parents gifted the school a new tennis court.

As a teenager and young woman, Rosemary had an active social life. Like her sisters, she played sports and attended the opera, concerts, and other social events. Rosemary loved to wear pretty clothes and get all fixed up. While at the convent, for instance, her brother John accompanied her to a tea dance. Because of him, she appeared “not different at all.” Even so, she knew she was, asking questions like, “Why don’t other boys ask me to dance?” Rosemary even visited the White House and attended the coronation of Pope Pius XII in Rome. While in public, Rosemary was tightly surrounded by her parents and siblings, ensuring that they helped her appear as typical as possible.

In interviews, Rose and Joe reported that Rosemary was “studying to be a kindergarten teacher” and that she “had an interest in social welfare work,” though she had a “secret longing to go out on the stage.” When The Boston Globe requested an interview with Rosemary herself, her father’s assistant prepared a statement for her to (laboriously) copy out: “I have always had serious tastes and understand life is not just for enjoyment. For some time past, I have been studying the well known psychological methods of Dr. Maria Montessori and I got my degree in teaching last year.”

In 1938, Joe Kennedy became the American ambassador to the United Kingdom. Rosemary, aged 19, and Kick, 18, were presented as debutantes in the court of King George VI and his Queen Elizabeth. Since Joe and Rose were still determined to keep Rosemary’s challenges a secret, they needed to present her at court just like the other eligible young women her age. With only two weeks to prepare, she practiced the complicated royal curtsy for hours, but even so tripped and almost fell during the event. The King and Queen smiled as if nothing had happened and the crowd made no sign of noticing. Rose never discussed the mistake and called Rosemary’s debut a “triumph.” British newspapers were captivated by her and her dress, favoring her over Kick.

*Kick, Rose, and Rosemary at court, 1938*

From the information we have, Rosemary appeared to enjoy her time abroad. She was enrolled in a London convent school, Belmont House, with a Montessori program. It was run by Mother Isabel of the Assumption Sisters. Rosemary served as Mother Isabel’s assistant with the children, finally finding purpose and support. She made “remarkable progress.” Joe agreed: “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.” She herself declared it “the most wonderfulest place I’ve been to.”

Rosemary’s life in England ended abruptly with the arrival of World War II. London became a target for German bombers and Joseph was forced to move his family, including Rosemary, out of Europe. According to her sister, Eunice, once Rosemary returned to America in June 1940, she became “increasingly irritable and difficult” and “seemed…to be going backward.” She flew into violent rages, bruising others with her fists. She even attacked her maternal grandfather, “hitting and kicking her tiny, white-haired grandfather until she was pulled away.” Rosemary appeared to be grieving over leaving her beloved Belmont House and furious that she could not have the same freedom her siblings had. She was once again moved from school to school, with the instability only adding to her difficulties. Her parents even investigated placing her in a psychiatric institution.

The 22-year-old was expelled within a few weeks from a summer camp in Massachusetts and then only lasted a few months at a Philadelphia boarding school. She was then sent to a convent school in Washington, D.C., where she began sneaking out at night. Given that she was young, beautiful, and too trusting, this was could have been very dangerous. Convinced that she was going home with strange men she met at bars (which we will never know if true or not), the nuns worried that she was having sexual encounters that could result in a sexually-transmitted disease or pregnancy. Her parents, especially her father, were incredibly frustrated at her behavior. They worried that it would shame the family and damage Joe’s and their sons’ future political careers.

In Rosemary’s story, her father is the villain. His actions can be given some context: he had never stopped searching for a “cure” for her. His protectiveness for his children bordered on obsession (for instance, he tried everything within his political and financial power to keep his sons out of combat in WWII, but they refused). Joe also felt bad that, due to the war, Rosemary’s “ideal life” in England was ripped away. He wanted his daughter to have the most productive and beneficial life, in his view, that he could provide. And unfortunately, it led him to a horrific decision.

Authors Barbara Gibson and Ted Schwarz scathingly wrote in 1995 that, “Joe had two principal concerns about Rosemary. She was not the competition-oriented ideal of Kennedy womanhood, and he thought her sexuality was too intense and untempered by the moral strictures to which the other daughters adhered. Joe destroyed a portion of her brain rather than risk what she might become if allowed to follow her own path in life.” Another author, Kate Clifford Larson, said that Joe wanted her to “more compliant, more pliable, less emotional.”

Joe decided he would solve the problem of Rosemary with surgery. A doctor told him that a lobotomy would calm her mood swings and curb her violent outbursts. He discussed the idea with Rose, who asked her daughter, Kick, to look into it. Kick reported back to her mother that the effects of lobotomies were “no good” and “it’s nothing we want done for Rosie.” Even so, Joe decided to go ahead with the surgery. Allegedly, Rose had no idea, saying later that her husband did not inform her until after the surgery had taken place. We do not know if Rosemary herself was told about the procedure beforehand either, but she probably was not.

In November 1941, when Rosemary was 23 years old, her father took her to Drs. James W. Watts and Walter Freeman at George Washington University Hospital. At that time, they had operated on fewer than 100 patients and neither had formal surgical training. Dr. Watts told Joe Kennedy that his daughter had not “mental retardation,” but instead had depression. This was common for Watts and Freeman: every patient they lobotomized was diagnosed with some kind of mental illness. Rosemary’s father would later refer to her as “mentally retarded” instead of mentally ill to, ironically, protect John’s reputation during his 1960 Presidential campaign.

Approximately 50,000 Americans received lobotomies between the late 1930s and early 1960s, most between 1949-1952. It was touted as a miracle cure for any mental health condition - alcoholism, nymphomania, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia - saying it would reduce agitation, anxiety, and excess emotion. In a 1942 presentation, Freeman and Watts claimed that, “These patients can be treated a good deal like children, with affectionate references to their irresponsible conduct. They harbor no grudges.” Some people had symptoms improve, some worsened, and some lost their ability to feel emotions at all. Some became severely disabled, catatonic, or died.

The procedure performed on Rosemary was described later as follows (fair warning: it’s a rough read):

“After Rosemary was mildly sedated, ‘we went through the top of the head,’ Dr. Watts recalled. ‘I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. 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 or sing ‘God Bless America’ or count backward ... ‘We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded.’ When Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped.”

— Ronald Kessler, 1996

This lobotomy, as many did, caused irreparable damage to Rosemary. Her cognitive skills were reduced to that of a 2-year-old. She could no longer walk or speak intelligibly and was incontinent. She would eventually learn to walk again, but with a limp. She never regained her ability to speak clearly. One arm was permanently paralyzed. It was said that the attending nurse was so traumatized that she quit her profession. The doctors were unphased: Dr. Freeman would perform at least 3000 lobotomies between 1936-1956, despite a 14% fatality rate. He was finally banned from performing any more in 1967, after a patient experienced a fatal brain hemorrhage. Dr. Watts performed or supervised 3500-4000 on patients as young as twelve.

After the surgery, Rosemary was immediately institutionalized. For several years she lived at Craig House, a former mansion-turned-private-psychiatric-hospital a bit north of New York City. She resided in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house instead of a room in the hospital with other patients, due to Joe’s demand for the utmost secrecy. She was never to be seen in public, including on the occasional patient field trips. Her siblings were confused, wondering why she was suddenly institutionalized with no one allowed to see her. Joe told his wife that it was best not to visit so she could get “accustomed” to her new home. Joe would write the family and assure them that Rosemary was “getting along happily.”

*The cottage Rosemary lived in from 1941-1949*

In 1949, after allegations that she was being sexually abused, Rosemary was moved to St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth (later renamed to “St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children”) in Jefferson, Wisconsin. It housed more than 300 people with disabilities, including adults who required lifelong care. Joe had learned of the school through Archbishop Richard Cushing. He traveled to Wisconsin to build a private one-story house for Rosemary about a mile from the main campus, near Alverno House (what is now their main campus). The nuns called the cottage “the Kennedy House.” The home was privately purchased and enlarged after Rosemary’s death.

Initially, two nuns, Sisters Margaret Ann and Leona, cared for her with a student’s help. Another woman came three nights a week to do ceramics with Rosemary. From 1968 on, Sister Paulus was her full-time caregiver. Joe bought his daughter a car so she could go on rides and shopping trips. She got a dog, a poodle named Lollie, that she could take on walks. She later got a pet bird, a canary named Skippy, as well. She received physical and speech therapy to help her regain some skills. The sisters also stopped giving her the heavy sedatives she had been prescribed and noted that “all of a sudden” she started talking. Rose later paid for a pool so she could go swimming every day. Rosemary finally had a routine in a familiar and stable place, friends, and caregivers who genuinely loved her no matter her abilities.

*Rosemary with Sister Paulus, her caregiver, in 1974*

After being institutionalized, Rosemary did not see her family again for decades, even though she still knew who they were. Joe did not visit his daughter once she was settled and Rose only visited twenty years after the move to St. Coletta, once her husband had died. None of her siblings, the youngest of whom was only nine years old, knew where she was, though John secretly visited her in 1958 (the traumatizing experience inspired him to push for disability legislation while President). They were only told of her location after Joe’s devastating stroke, which left him with aphasia and using a wheelchair, in 1961.

Publicly, Joe and Rose said in 1958 that Rosemary was “reclusive.” In 1962, her sister Eunice revealed that she was “mentally retarded” in an interview with The Saturday Evening Post, and was living in “an excellent Catholic institution that specialized in the care of retarded children and adults..Rosemary is there now, living with others of her capacity. She has found peace in a new home where there is no need for 'keeping up' or for brooding over why she can't join in activities as others do. This, coupled with the understanding of the sisters in charge, makes life agreeable for her.”

Eunice also used this article to discuss the prevalence of intellectual disability in the population. She commented that “we are just coming out of the dark ages in our handling of this serious national problem. Even within the last several years, there have been known instances where families have committed retarded infants to institutions before they were a month old - and ran obituaries in the local papers to spread the belief that they were dead…it is still widely assumed - even among some medical people - that the future for the mentally retarded is hopeless.” She pushed that these people are capable of becoming “useful citizens with the help of special education and rehabilitation.” Eunice asked for more public and government support in research for ways to help this population.

The lobotomy that destroyed Rosemary was never ever mentioned. It was not public knowledge until author Doris Kearns Goodwin revealed it in her 1987 book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. She had befriended Rose Kennedy, then in her late 90s, who finally opened up about her eldest daughter. Goodwin commented that, “There are times I think she must have gone [to visit Rosemary] at some point, although she’s the one who said she didn’t go.” She said that Rosemary’s condition was “the one thing [Rose] was bitter about.” When asked by a neighbor what she thought the worst family tragedy was, Rose replied that what happened to Rosemary was the very worst.

*Sister Paulus, Rose, Rosemary, and another nun*

By the time of Joe’s death in 1969, his eldest two sons were dead (one to World War II and one to assassination), his oldest daughter had been destroyed by a surgery he pushed for, and his next oldest daughter (plane crash) and third son (assassination) were also dead. Somehow, even with all that Rosemary endured, she outlived half of her siblings. She only outlived Pat by one year and Eunice and Ted by four years. The final Kennedy sibling, Jean, died in 2020.

After Joe’s death, the family, especially Rose and Eunice, gradually began to include Rosemary again. One of the nuns at St. Coletta’s remembered when Rosemary was first reunited with her mother after two decades: Rosemary recoiled from Rose, then began beating her mother’s chest while crying and moaning. The pain and anguish of her surgery, rehabilitation, and exile all came flooding back. After this, though, their relationship slowly began to mend.

One of her caretakers noted that Rosemary was “in heaven” when people visited her. She was taken to visit relatives in Florida and Washington, D.C., and to a childhood home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. It had been one of her favorite places as a child, one that she finally returned to in the 1970s. She went back almost every summer until her death. She especially loved the ice cream shop, Four Seas. Her family, including her dozens of nieces and nephews, would throw her pretend birthday parties, since celebrations were one of her favorite things. Her brother Ted would play the piano and sing along with Rosemary. She loved swimming, especially in a hot pool, and would spend hours floating on the water. Her relatives continued to include her in their lives, even after Rose passed away at the age of 104 in 1995.

Eunice, partly to due to her sister’s story, helped found the Special Olympics. She had taken over the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation in 1957, which sought to research the causes of intellectual disability and improve the lives of those with it. In 1962, she began hosting a summer camp(called “Camp Shriver”) in her backyard for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, which became the Special Olympics in 1968. This has turned into a global competition that now involves millions. On September 13, 2018, they honored what would have been Rosemary’s 100th birthday.

John was so horrified after his secret 1958 visit to St. Coletta that, when he was President, it inspired him to enact legislation for care programs for Americans with disabilities. He signed the Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendment to the Social Security Act. This was a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which their brother Ted pushed for as a senator. Ted also sat on the board of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

In 1974, her sister Jean started Very Special Arts, a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities obtain education and skills in the arts and have access to cultural facilities and events.

And, in 1989, Rosemary’s nephew, Anthony Shriver, who had built a room for his aunt in his home, started Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to promoting friendships and leadership for people with intellectual disabilities and their families. His brother, Timothy, took over the role of Special Olympics CEO from their mother, Eunice, in 1996. He wrote in 2015 about his aunt Rosemary: “Her role is a powerful part of my life.”

*Rosemary with Mark, Bobby, Tim, Maria, and Anthony Shriver*

Across the world, hospitals, schools, and other facilities have been named in Rosemary. A movie starring Elisabeth Moss, entitled A Letter from Rosemary Kennedy, was reportedly in development in 2018, though there have been no updates since. There was even an opera, Least Like the Other, based on her life that premiered in 2023 in London.

Rosemary died of natural causes on January 7, 2005, at the age of of 86. She passed away at Fort Atkinson Hospital in Wisconsin, with her siblings Jean, Eunice, Pat, and Ted by her side. She was buried next to her parents Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.

It had taken decades, but when Rosemary’s family found her again, they were ready this time. They were ready to welcome her fully into their lives, both privately and publicly. Rosemary’s banishment was finally over. And, lucky for all of us, she lived a long life of endurance, long enough to influence the next generations. I hope that this post appropriately honored her legacy.

*Letter from Rosemary to Mrs. Smyth, 1938*
*It reads: “Best Love from your darling sweetheart. Love, Rosemary.”*

Most sincerely,

Christina

Further Reading

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson (2016)
The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women by Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff (2016)
Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World by Eileen McNamara (2019)
Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most by Timothy Shriver (2015)
The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy by Jean Kennedy Smith (2016)
The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family by Laurence Learner (1994)
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin (1987)
Times to Remember by Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1995)
The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded by Ronald Kessler (1996)

Works Consulted

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Rosemary Kennedy - Daughter in Exile

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