How Rose Kennedy became the most dangerous member of the famous family
Much is known about the Kennedy women – Jackie, Caroline, Carolyn – but Rosemary Kennedy remains a mystery to many. And for good reason. Headstrong and carefree – but plagued by mental health issues – Rosemary remains the least known (if not forgotten) Kennedy. And in her new book, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed, author Maureen Callahan explores the shocking reasons why.
She had no words for it, but she knew the feeling: lonely.
She had her nuns and her nurses, and they were wonderful, but this wasn’t her real home and these weren’t her siblings.
She saw the news footage of Jack on that terrible day and knew something bad had happened to him, but she couldn’t understand what.
Sometimes she saw her sisters or her mother and father on television, but none of them ever came to visit.
What had Rosemary done?
She had been such a good girl.
September 1939: England declared war on Germany.
Joe, as US ambassador to the United Kingdom, sent all the other Kennedy sons and daughters back to the States with their mother.
But he was happy to leave Rosemary at Belmont School, which specialized in cases like hers.
Did Joe have a death wish for his daughter?
Joe publicly supported Hitler’s plan for forced sterilization, which was primarily aimed at people with “congenital mental disabilities.”
Joe called it “a great thing. I don’t know what the church thinks of it, but it will eliminate many of the disgusting specimens… that populate this earth.”
Rosie didn’t feel left behind or less cared for. In fact, Joe had told her the opposite: he had chosen her to stay in England because she was special.
“You’ll be the one to keep me company,” he said to Rosie. She was 20 years old.
Life became much more difficult for her, especially reading and writing.
She was the only one of the Kennedy siblings who was not athletic.
She struggled with her weight while everyone else knew they had to stay slim and tan.
Even disheveled, they all looked so sporty and stylish.
Not Rosie.
She would never again be the carefree girl on a Kennedy sail, with windswept hair and white sweaters, rocking weightlessly on the ocean waves while the men smoke cigars and act self-important.
The Kennedys were a family of winners – and Rosie, well, she was starting to look like a loser.
Another reason for Joe, who raised future American presidents, to keep Rosemary hidden in England.
When Joe came to visit, Rosie beamed.
She had officially become the companion of the ambassador in England, something like a substitute wife.
The combination of her father’s intense attention, his longed-for recognition and the new realization that Rosie was special because of her differences, created her happiest moments.
Whenever Joe left, her thoughts were always with him, as she so aptly expressed in a letter to him in March 1940:
“Dear Dad, I feel honored that you chose me to stay. And the others are probably wild… PS: I like you so much. And I love you very much.”
In the English countryside, alone with the nuns at her new school, Rosie could only think of Joe.
She took every criticism to heart.
“You’re getting way too fat,” Old Joe had told her.
Rosie was ashamed.
“I would do anything to make you so happy,” she wrote to him.
She followed a strict diet and received the injections three times a week, which Joe said were her secret.
Rosie didn’t know why she needed it; it was the same doctor who had examined Rosie and declared her “in perfect condition.”
Her father, who could not tolerate Rosie’s intellectual weaknesses, saw things differently.
Joe Kennedy had heard of a new experimental procedure for the most difficult cases, for women who were moody, sad or sexually promiscuous – Rosie met all three criteria – and asked another daughter, Kick, to look into it.
Kick quickly returned to her mother.
“Oh no,” said Kick. “We don’t want Rosie to know about this.”
Rose was relieved.
She never liked the idea.
Joe kept his thoughts to himself.
Either way, Rosie couldn’t live with the family.
We do not tolerate losers.
One day in November 1941, Joe told Rosie he wanted to introduce her to someone new, a Dr. Freeman from George Washington Hospital.
It should remain her secret and not even Rose should find out about it.
Freeman was famous and brilliant, and he was working on a revolutionary treatment for people like Rosie.
I would do anything to make you so happy.
One of Jack’s friends found something sinister in the dynamic between Joe and Rosemary.
This friend wondered – and she was not alone – if Joe was sexually abusing her. Leaving Rosie alone in England, using her as his “mate” and keeping her away from her siblings – that made sense, she thought.
The day after Thanksgiving, November 28, 1941, Rosie went to the appointment Joe had made for her.
The doctors wanted to shave her head.
If Rosie wanted to be like her siblings, if she wanted to be a real Kennedy – well, this was the first step towards her change.
Rosie was given a hospital gown.
Her hair fell to the floor in soft tufts.
A sedative, a stretcher, an operating room, a stainless steel table.
Shackles. Her head was strapped down.
She was wrapped in white towels and sheets.
Bright white lights.
She couldn’t see what was happening.
There was a whirring sound, powerful and loud, followed by the sharp and smoky smell of metal on bone.
The doctors told Rosie not to worry.
She didn’t even need an anesthetic – it was that simple and painless.
Now she has pressure on the side of her eye.
Rosie’s head vibrated, the side of her head pulsated.
The doctor who spoke to her seemed satisfied.
The way they used to do this was far less pleasant.
He had to render the other patients unconscious – not with anesthesia, but with electric shocks to the brain, although this sometimes took five or six attempts and the patients began to convulse and scream.
Sometimes they begged to die.
Rosie didn’t have to endure that.
Nor did she have to endure Dr. Freeman’s previous method, in which he hammered ice picks from his kitchen drawer through the eye socket directly to the brain and moved the pick back and forth like a metronome until he heard the Pop, pop, pop! of frayed nerves, like the sound of a soda can opening and emptying.
Then he knew his work was done.
All of these patients would recover with two black eyes after the treatment.
Rosie wouldn’t have to worry about that. Her appearance would remain untouched.
The drill fell silent.
The heavy tool fell to the ground.
Rattles on a tray like cutlery.
Something slender slid into one of the holes in her skull.
When it was finally over, Rosie was no longer Rosie.
She would never be able to do anything again: talk, walk, swim, dance, flirt with boys.
Or take a shower, comb your hair, eat, go to the toilet.
The circuits in her brain had gone dark, like a string of lights being crushed one by one.
Rosie was now practically two years old.
When reporters asked what had happened to Rosemary, Joe always had an explanation ready: she had pursued her life’s work in another state and taught children who, as they said at the time, were mentally handicapped.
Extract from “do not ask“ by Maureen Callahan. Copyright © 2024 by Maureen Callahan. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
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