Posted on 08/03/2021 5:01:40 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
[JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, had his own daughter Rosemary Kennedy, lobotomized in 1941 when she was 23 years old.
She was a vegetable for the rest of her life.
Good work, Dad.]
Rosemary Kennedy in 1938, ready to be presented at Buckingham Palace.
In November 1941, Joseph Kennedy (without consulting his wife) authorised two surgeons, Dr Walter Jackson Freeman and Dr James W Watts, to perform a lobotomy on Rosemary. She was just 23 years old.
Rosemary Kennedy’s lobotomy
The lobotomy – a new ‘psycho-surgical’ operation that involved separation or removal of pathways between lobes of the brain – was believed to be a cure for a multitude of psychological delinquencies such as alcoholism and ‘nymphomania’ [the term given to uncontrollable and excessive sexual desire]. Up to 5,000 lobotomies a year were performed in the United States during the 1940s, the majority on young women. In total, Dr Freeman was singlehandedly responsible for almost 3,000 of these procedures. An article in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1941 praised Freeman’s “pioneering” work and offered hope that the surgery could make patients who were “problems to their families and nuisances to themselves” into “useful members of society”.
Drilling holes into Rosemary’s skull, Dr Freeman inserted a knife and began cutting away the frontal lobes of her brain. Strapped tightly to the table, she was awake and terrified through the procedure. Suddenly, she fell silent and lapsed into unconsciousness.
What happened to Rosemary Kennedy?
The operation had been a catastrophic failure. Rosemary could no longer walk or talk. Even after years of therapy, she could utter no more than a few words and never fully recovered the use of her limbs. Her autonomy, such as it had been, was effectively over. She was to live for the next 64 years hidden away in institutions, needing full-time care.
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff records that doctors had ordered Rosemary Kennedy “to have no visitors, because they could disrupt and confuse her”. It’s possible that Joseph also directed there to be no visitors, aiming to avoid the charge by political rivals that there was ‘lunacy’ in the family. Whatever the reasons, writes Koehler-Pentacoff, “Rosemary received no visitors during the bleakest years of her life”.
She occasionally showed tiny signs of progress, but these would vanish again, and for the last years of her life she was huddled in a wheelchair, unrecognisable as the vibrant, beautiful woman who had dazzled the British press in the 1930s. She died in 2005, at the age of 86.
Loving father, Joseph Kennedy.
Joseph Kennedy was lots of things. I take it there is much more to this story than meets the eye. Her behavior must have been pretty embarrassing to the Kennedys for her dad to authorize this drastic procedure.
Even though JK had lots of faults and made the Kennedy fortune off of alcohol, he was patriotic and pro-American, unlike modern day democrats who hate America first.
The story I read is she was a bit slow, because at birth, her mother’s physician was not there, and they prevented delivery until the doc could arrive, by Rose keeping her legs together to prevent birth.
Also that Joe ordered the operation without Rose’s knowledge. He was a horrible man.
Thanks Joe. Seriously. One less Kennedy that would have created 30-40 progeny that would be crapping on what’s left of America today.
Hey, why not look for the silver lining?
I’ve always said politicians would destroy their own children than lose power..Kennedy proved the point ...Annnnd he was a democrat ,of course....
When I saw she was awake thru the procedure I felt physically ill.
IMO what happened to Rosemary is the reason the clan has devoted so much time and effort to causes relating to the mentally disabled (or whatever the PC term is today) Guilt can be a heavy, inescapable burden.
jm2¢
What happened to Rosemary spurred the development of the Special Olympics.
bmp
When the rest of his children faced the prospect of being forced to have a lobotomy if they didn’t behave... I’m pretty sure they all behaved perfectly.
Joseph Kennedy was a Nazi and Hitler supporter.
Franklin Roosevelt had to remove Joseph Kennedy from his post as US ambassador to Great Britain because of Kennedy’s unauthorized meetings with high level Nazi officials and his promoting of Germany preceeding WWII.
Joseph Kennedy, worked with the mob his whole life.
Sam Giancana said, “The biggest crook I ever dealt with was Joe Kennedy.”
New York mobster Frank Costello said, “I made Joe Kennedy his money.”
During Prohibition Kennedy used his high class contacts to bring liquor in from Europe, which the mob then rebottled and sold in the US speakeasies.
Pretty much all the Kennedy women were treated horribly.
Many years ago I read that Rosemary was as promiscuous as her brothers and her parents were afraid that she’d bring embarrassment to the family and ruin its rise in society and politics. It was expected that the boys would screw around, but not the girls. Hence the lobotomy for her.
I reserve judgement. Accepted practices were much different..especially for females. I had a relative go through electric shock therapy. Its barbaric but back then it was accepted. Females got put through all kinds of things.
Yeah, Chop out her brains.
That’s the ticket.
A recent TV documentary pretty much implied that. To Joe, Rosemary was pretty much a loose cannon. He couldn’t have that in his ideal world.
And the same “doctors” exist today...the vaccines are “perfectly safe”
Many years ago, I knew a woman who had been lobotomized because of violent aggressive behavior.
She was like a child after that. She’s walk around talking to herself, and everything.
She was clearly not as bad as Rosemary Kennedy, but definitely seriously mentally damaged.
It was very sad to see.
Joe Kennedy was a murderous Irish bootlegger mobster.
He was no better than Lucky Luciano or Al Capone.
He was a killer who got rich bringing in Canadian whiskey during prohibition.
Joe Kennedy was a mobster, hard-core fascist and sex addict. Too many people have tried to paint over the Kennedys. They were a very dysfunctional and immoral family.
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