Families and Frontal Lobotomies

In our class our instructor referred to a story relating to the near royalty American Family, the Kennedy’s and sister to JFK, Rosemary. Needless to say I was compelled to find out more and assemble my findings and thoughts here. Welcome.

The article I found, providing me with, yes I admit, 1 view Gerald O’Brien.“Rosemary Kennedy: The Importance of A Historical Footnote.”Journal of Family History, Vol 29 No 3, July 2004. 225-236. http://jfh.sagepub.com/

“Rosemary was the third of the Kennedy children and the oldest girl. Preceded by Joe Jr. and John... Rose, her mother, realized within a few years of Rosemary’s birth (Sept 13, 1918) that her daughter took longer to reach developmental milestone than did the two boys... She and her husband engaged in a spree of doctor shopping as they desperately sought accurate diagnostic and treatment information related to their daughter.” ”While Rosemary’s father, Joseph Sr., had an especially difficult time acknowledging that he had sired a retarded child, Rose attempted to treat her daughter as much as possible like the other children... While sexual conquest, for example, was an expected trait among the males in their household, the daughters were taught that an important element of their religious faith was abstinence until marriage.”

“Rose, a strong Catholic, later rationalized that her daughter had been sent to them for a special purpose, “to do work he cannot do through any other child.” “Rosemary’s sexual awakening... Rosemary being widely regarded as one of the most attractive of the Kennedy girls, Joe and Rose were extremely worried about the possibility that she would become sexually abused or pregnant... Because of concerns about her [s]exuality, Joe Sr., decided, without consultation or informing his wife, to have a prefrontal lobotomy performed on Rosemary.” “Rosemary’s surgery was performed very soon after the introduction of the technique to this country. Fewer than one hundred such operations had been completed at this time, and the procedure was very much experimental. The operation was recommended for hopeless’ patients who had little to lose and everything to gain. This description hardly fit Rosemary Kennedy.” “Rosemary’s operation was a complete disaster, taking away many of the skills that she had developed through years of her mothers perseverance. Rosemary was later placed in St. Coletta’s, a Wisconsin facility for persons with mental retardation, where she remains to this day.” “Once she was institutionalized, Rosemary was treated as if she were no longer part of the family. In the family letters that Rose wrote after 1942, Rosemary’s name was not included along with those of her siblings, and she only received as few visits from family members over the next several decades.”
To Be Continued:

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