48. She May Not Have Needed It
Before her lobotomy, Rosemary Kennedy wrote copiously in her diaries, and her recollections indicate a relatively normal life full of social events in high society. Just a year before the procedure, in fact, she wrote to her father, saying “Darling Daddy, I am so fond of you. And I love you so much”. While these messages can’t prove her mental capacity, they certainly don’t indicate violence in her behavior. Perhaps, then, Rosemary’s worst sin was simply being different than the rest of her ambitious family.
After the lobotomy, Joseph Sr kept his role in her treatment hidden. Almost no one in the family, save Rose eventually, was told the whole truth of it, and the children only found out where Rosemary was after Joseph Sr’s passing in 1968.
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49. She Tried To Make Things Right
While Rose Kennedy had failed to protect her daughter in the early years, she did try to make up for it in the end. After her husband passed, Rose brought Rosemary more and more out of the institution and back to Hyannis Port, where the young woman had spent her childhood. Heartbroken, around this time Rose confided to a neighbor that, out of all the Kennedy woes, Rosemary’s fate was “the worst tragedy”.
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50. Jackie O Insulted Her
With her strong sense of self, Rose Kennedy was never going to get along with everyone. Indeed, even her most famous daughter-in-law didn’t like her: Jackie Kennedy once wrote to a correspondent—a priest, no less— that “I don’t think [John’s] mother is too bright—and she would rather say a rosary than read a book”.
51. Her Life Is The Story Of America
Rose Kennedy kept an iron grip on her illustrious family, all while battling personal demons and the incessant tragedies life kept throwing at her children. With all this suppressed turmoil, it’s no wonder she was a divisive figure in her time—and she remains both an emblem of the American Dream and a sign of everything wrong with it.
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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
