The Kennedy family has been a source of endless fascination in the United States for almost a century. The Irish immigrant family seemed to embody the American Dream and a fairyland existence seemed to s
urround them—referred to many times as Camelot. But along with the fame, riches and power, numerous tragedies have befallen the Kennedy family. One such tragedy is recounted in, Rosemary: the hidden Kennedy daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson.
Many books and movies have disclosed the lives of various members of the Kennedy family, but little has been said about the eldest daughter, Rosemary. The third child of Joe and Rose Kennedy suffered oxygen deprivation during her difficult birth. Slower and lest robust than the rest of the Kennedy brood, Rosemary struggled in school and lagged behind socially and mentally in the highly competitive Kennedy family. In the 1920’s and 30’s, the decades of Rosemary’s childhood and adolescence, even the Kennedy wealth could find little information or resources to help their intellectually disabled child.
Failing in her studies and moved from school to school in an effort to find a good fit, Rosemary finally blossomed in England where her father was the American ambassador to Great Britain. But this life did not last as the Kennedy family was recalled to the U.S. at the start of World War II. The return was disastrous for Rosemary and she regressed to the point where her behavior became uncontrollable. Fearing Rosemary’s problems would prove detrimental to the futures of their other children, Joe and Rose made the decision to have their daughter surgically altered with a new procedure-a prefrontal lobotomy. This decision destroyed any chance at a normal life that Rosemary may have had, causing her to be institutionalized for the rest of her life, from age 23 until she died in 2005 at age 86.
In Rosemary: the hidden Kennedy daughter, Kate Larson has found something new to add to the plethora of literature written about the Kennedy family--the untold life of a beautiful, vivacious, albeit intellectually challenged daughter of American royalty. While the Kennedy family rarely spoke publicly about Rosemary, her life was the catalyst for good. Sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver became an activist for people with disabilities, creating the Special Olympics, one of many organizations the Kennedy’s established to benefit the disabled.