Posted on 01/09/2005 4:43:44 AM PST by billorites
The Kennedy family tragedy that was Rosemary Kennedy's life became the inspiration for a movement that improved life for tens of thousands of mentally retarded Americans, advocates said.
Kennedy, the oldest sister of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [related, bio] and the late President John F. Kennedy, died Friday at 86 in a Wisconsin hospital near the facility where she spent most of her life. At age 23, a lobotomy was performed on her reportedly on medical advice that it would calm the mildly retarded woman's behavior and mood swings that her father feared would create problems for her and embarrass the prominent family.
Her younger sister, Eunice Shriver, founded the Special Olympics in 1968, and with other family members became an advocate for the mentally disabled.
``There is no question that the world has changed dramatically in terms of people's perceptions,'' said Robert Johnson of the Massachusetts Special Olympics. ``She (Rosemary) was the inspiration of many programs to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. . . . Their living opportunities, social opportunities and work opportunities are remarkably better as a direct result of the work Mrs. Shriver has done.''
The family began talking openly about Rosemary's condition in 1960.
Colleen Lutkevich of the Massachusetts Coalition of Families and Advocates for the Retarded said the Kennedys ``really were in the forefront of being open about mental retardation, that it wasn't something you had to hide. It made people aware that this is an issue in many families.''
Though Joseph Kennedy's decision to have his daughter undergo a lobotomy has been the subject of some controversy, Lutkevich said the action taken in 1942 can't be judged by today's standards.
``It's a tragedy. We can say, `How could anyone do that?' But people take advice from physicians and think they are doing the right thing. We have come a long way. We can't criticize and judge what was done.''
When JFK ran for president in 1960 the official family story was that Rosemary was shy and had devoted her life to teaching children in a Wisconsin convent.
Rosemary was only mildly retarded, and considered the prettiest of the Kennedy daughters. She was presented at Court along with her sister Kathleen when her father was the American Ambassador to Britain. When the bombing started, Ol' Joe sent his wife and other children home but Kathleen stayed in a British convent near London. She wrote her father some very sweet letters about how she wanted him to be proud of her.
But when she and Joe returned home puberty must have set in. She saw the difference in treatment between her dating younger sister and herself and she would fly into rages at times. Once she even attacked her small grandfather, 'Honey' Fitzgerald. She would slip out of the house at night, and the parents became terrified that she might get into 'trouble'.
Joe Kennedy did some research on a new technique that promised to calm down people, to make them more placid and agreeable. When Rose was gone on a trip he had Rosemary lobotomized, supposedly without her mother's knowledge. The ice pick-like instrument was inserted under the frontal lobes of the eyes and swished back and forth through the frontal brain.
It was a disaster for Rosemary. She lost her ability to read, write, think, plus her personality and continence. Joe stuck her away in the Wisconsin convent and by all accountants never saw her again. The only family members that ever visited Rosemary were her mother and sister, Eunance.
I just did a Google search and Rosemary was mildly retarded. She was living a productive life. The procedure was used for severe cases only. Joe Sr. didn't even tell the family or his wife, her mother, about the Lobotomy. That tells me, Joe Sr. may very well have known or had an idea of what the out come would be.
Talk about comparing apples and oranges, comparing a Lobotomy to Prozac.
Dear God! I knew she had a lobotomy, but I didn't realize she was only mildly retarded. That's so much worse. I know many people who are mildly retarded, and they are wonderful, usually happy people. The idea of any of them being lobotomized is horrendous.
What a horrible family.
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