Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter (30 page)

The pace of Rosemary’s visits increased; her Easter 1975 visit was followed by another at the end of the year. Jim Connor, the family’s driver and sometime bodyguard, later recalled Rosemary’s arriving for a visit to Palm Beach accompanied by two nuns over the Christmas holiday. Once at the house, Rosemary “came bouncing up the steps there and she said, ‘Mommy. You momma, me baby.’”
Whether Rosemary bounced up the stairs is questionable. Another family staff member recalled Rosemary occasionally saying “Kathleen.” The photographer who had come to take the annual holiday photos remembered Rosemary being very “fidgety,” so much so that the family questioned whether she should be made to sit for the portrait.

By the late 1970s, Rosemary was making twice-yearly trips to her family’s two residences. The regular visits put a great strain on Rose, especially as she aged. Rose Kennedy’s secretary Barbara Gibson, whom Rosemary called “Arbarb,” recalled Rose becoming increasingly agitated and nervous as the day of Rosemary’s
arrival approached.
With Rosemary present, sadness and anxiety would envelop Rose. Gibson, who later erroneously claimed that Rosemary was never mentally disabled but merely dyslexic, witnessed the estrangement between Rose and Rosemary. One day, while Rose was swimming with Gibson in the pool at Hyannis Port, Rosemary’s aides from Saint Coletta took her out for a swim as well. The nuns encouraged Rosemary to get in the pool while Rose was there, but she refused. Gibson watched as Rosemary, seated in a chair instead, looked “straight ahead, like a dutiful child who has been punished for misbehavior.” Rose whispered, “Oh, Rosie, what did we do to you?”
Rosemary’s nurses and companions found the trips to Palm Beach and Hyannis Port stressful, too, recognizing the frustration and alienation that Rosemary felt in her mother’s presence.

Kerry McCarthy, Rose’s great-niece and the granddaughter of Joe’s sister Loretta, also recalled the emotional toll Rosemary’s visits took on Rose. On one occasion, Rose tried to find a connection with Rosemary, asking her if she remembered Kerry’s grandmother Loretta. Stroking Rosemary’s black hair, kissing her gently, and hugging her while she watched television, Rose became wistful. “Rosie . . . Rosie . . . Rosie . . . Remember when you learned to write and you wrote Aunt Loretta from England? Remember that, Rosie, remember?” Rosemary just ignored her, rocking back and forth in her chair. Rose began to sob uncontrollably. Kerry helped her aging aunt back upstairs.

Rose could not find new common ground—she relied on the old habits and former ways, creating stress for Rosemary and disappointment for herself. Barbara Gibson often noted Rose’s distant attitude. She recalled Rose’s instructions to throw away Rosemary’s diaries that had been uncovered during a search through
family papers in the early 1970s, when Rose was working on her memoir. Troubled by the request to dispose of the diaries, Gibson—who insisted Rosemary had been a normal but psychologically troubled young woman—says she retrieved them from the trash. Gibson believed that Rose was trying to erase any documentation of Rosemary’s true mental capacity. She claimed that the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston refused to accept the diaries into its collection when she offered them. Interestingly, in writing two books about the Kennedys, Gibson quoted only from letters already in the possession of the library, though she attributed those quotes to the supposed diaries.

What did Rosemary understand about the many joys and losses the rest of the family had endured together over the prior thirty years? Some reports claimed that Rosemary had secretly attended her brother’s presidential inauguration, but that is not true. She remained in Wisconsin, watching the swearing-in on television with staff and friends. The television would also reveal President Kennedy’s assassination to her. According to the
Milwaukee Sentinel,
“President Kennedy’s sister, Rosemary, learned of his assassination while watching a television broadcast from Dallas, Tex., where he was shot.” Confirmation from a spokesperson at the school was chilling: “She knows he is dead . . . She was watching on television.”
Jack had been her escort to so many dances and social events when they were young. Both Joe and Jack had lovingly teased her and treated her like the little sister she was. Bobby had grown up and become a man, but he, too, was assassinated, in 1968. Her brothers had loved her, she had felt their love, and now they were gone.

The Moores were gone, as well—Eddie had died in 1952 and Mary in 1964. They had been like parents to Rosemary. Mary had
visited Rosemary at Craig House, and continued visiting once Rosemary was settled in Wisconsin, maintaining the close bond she and Eddie had shared with Rosemary since her birth.

Thrown back into the family homes with her now-mature siblings, who had spouses and numerous children she did not know, Rosemary showed confusion and frustration. Encounters between Rose and Rosemary were often short and scarring. Rosemary, Sister Margaret Ann believed, blamed Rose for not protecting her, as a child expects a mother to do.

Eunice, Teddy, and Rosemary’s numerous nieces and nephews helped make her visits more pleasant. As Rose herself became feeble, senile, and uncommunicative during the last decade of her life, the rest of the family ensured that Rosemary’s visits were more enjoyable, and perhaps less stressful. They had parties for her with her favorite cakes and sweets, music, and more. Rosemary beamed with delight.

Eunice visited with Rosemary far more than any of the siblings. As she had done when they were teenagers and young adults, Eunice accompanied Rosemary to church, to restaurants and shopping, on long walks, on sailing excursions, and to the beach. They had gone dancing together, seen the sights of Europe together, and witnessed the ordination of a pope together. Now, as Rosemary’s caregiver, Eunice vowed to do many of the things they had done as youngsters, and more. She took Rosemary to Special Olympics events, for instance, determined that Rosemary remain active and engaged. If Rosemary was reluctant, Eunice would be firm with her. As a child and young woman, Eunice had been able to soothe Rosemary’s rages and to elicit cooperation from her when no one else in the family could. Now, Eunice had seemingly less patience, though more purpose.

Barbara Gibson recalled watching Eunice force Rosemary into
swimming or sailing when she did not want to do those things. Though Eunice was acting as the siblings had once done when they were young—cajoling and criticizing one another for failure to comply with an activity—one of Rosemary’s companions, Sister Juliane, disliked such forced treatment for Rosemary. “Eunice has no compassion for human weakness,” the nun remarked.
Eunice’s son Anthony Shriver recalls one afternoon’s sail to a local Cape Cod restaurant with his mother, Rosemary, and a friend. While they were at the restaurant, the weather turned foul. Eunice insisted they sail home in spite of the storm. Anthony, reluctant but not one to challenge his mother, tried to help the unwilling Rosemary back into the boat, a difficult endeavor. Frustrated, Rosemary burst out, “Damn Anthony, get away from me.”
In spite of the fact that her words were generally limited and that she often used phrases repetitively, Rosemary had no trouble expressing herself in this instance.

Life with Rosemary could be unpredictable. During one outing, Eunice took her sister to Saint Peter’s in Chicago for Sunday Mass. Afterward, Eunice and the two nuns from Saint Coletta who were accompanying Rosemary stopped to look at religious books displayed in the vestibule of the church. Bored or distracted, Rosemary wandered away. Eunice and the sisters prayed and searched while dozens of Chicago police officers looked for Rosemary along the city’s busy sidewalks. “If you know Rosemary,” Sister Sheila later told a reporter, “you could understand how that could happen. She likes to walk. The rest of the Kennedys are browsers.”
Five hours later, she was spotted several blocks from the church, looking in store windows, by a local television reporter. “Are you looking for Eunice?” the reporter asked. Rosemary replied yes, but the reporter wasn’t so sure Rosemary knew where she was or what she was doing.

Eunice’s children became extremely close to Rosemary, too. As their disabled aunt, Rosemary would deeply move them as children and adults. Anthony Shriver became founder and chairman of Best Buddies International, a global volunteer organization that facilitates employment opportunities and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through one-on-one friendship and mentoring programs.
Once settled with a family of his own, Anthony built an additional room to accommodate Rosemary’s visits to his Miami home. “A Kennedy through and through,” he believes his aunt to have been, someone whose personality shone through even with limited language and physical abilities. “She was very strong and determined,” sometimes frightening Anthony’s young children with her forcefulness. But her love of swimming brought them all together in the pool.

Anthony’s brother Timothy, who replaced their mother as chairman and CEO of Special Olympics in 2003, remembers Rosemary being a frequent visitor to his family home when he was a child. Though her language was terribly limited—often she repeated the words
babies,
mother,
and
Eunice
—he remembers that she loved to take long walks, swim, and play card games. She loved to eat sweets, often demanding dessert before the main course at dinner. She loved to be “prettied up” and was easily brought to smiles by a simple compliment about her hair or outfit.
As Rosemary aged, however, her mobility became hampered, slowly decreasing over time until finally, in her last years, she used a wheelchair.

Even though Eunice claimed her work with the disabled was not inspired by Rosemary, both Anthony and Tim believe otherwise. Perhaps Eunice, who so idolized her brother Jack, could not imagine that it was her sister Rosemary who had helped define the
family’s passion for the disabled. In fact, Tim believes that Rosemary belonged at the center of the Kennedy family story, because it was she, through her self-determination and the struggles that she faced, who had transformed them all.
Certainly, both nephews feel that Rosemary inspired them—Tim to carry on his mother’s work at Special Olympics, and Anthony through Best Buddies. “The interest [Rosemary] sparked in my family towards people with special needs,” Anthony claims, “will one day go down as the greatest accomplishment that any Kennedy has made on a global basis.”

Shriver brothers Robert and Mark have also found ways to support the family commitment to the disabled. With the musician Bono, Robert helped found DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), which advocates for the eradication of poverty through education, debt reduction, development assistance, and campaigning for access to treatment for AIDS and malaria in Africa; and Mark serves as senior vice president of U.S. programs for Save the Children. Eunice’s only daughter, Maria Shriver, sits on the boards of Special Olympics and Best Buddies, and has earned two Emmy Awards for her documentary film work on Alzheimer’s disease, a debilitating dementia that claimed her father Sarge’s life and memories.

Their mother, however, would be the most powerful moving force behind the cause of the disabled, pushing public and private institutions and foundations to sponsor and provide services, to fund and conduct research, and to make accommodations for the intellectually and physically challenged. Once locked away or institutionalized, people with developmental, intellectual, psychological, and physical disabilities can now participate in life and integrate in communities in ways that seemed impossible when Rosemary was a child and young adult. They are able to go to
school, live independently, and receive life-saving medical and psychological care and mobility accommodations—and more. Eunice’s son Tim revealed in an interview that when he asked his mother what drove her so hard, she told him, “anger.” He said, “After watching the struggles of her sister and visiting institutions and seeing this enormous amount of human suffering, and at the same time coming from a place where women didn’t have equal opportunity in sports, she just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Sports Illustrated
called Eunice a “revolutionary,” but Rosemary’s life was the spark firing Eunice’s sixty-year effort on behalf of the disabled.
Rosemary, Eunice believed, “sensitized . . . us all to the gifts of the vulnerable and the weak.”

R
OSEMARY AND
E
UNICE’S
brother Ted, a senator from Massachusetts for more than forty-seven years, would take over as legislative champion for the cause of the disabled by initiating, sponsoring, and supporting hundreds of pieces of legislation. He believed that Rosemary “taught us the worth of every human being.”
Working tirelessly and often across the partisan aisle with Senate and House colleagues, like Orrin Hatch, a Republican senator from Utah, Ted helped pass major social and civil rights legislation. His efforts include the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Child Care Act (both passed in 1990), and the Ryan White AIDS Care Act of 1990; he increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and many more educational, housing, medical, and support-services programs. The ADA specifically prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability, forcing the inclusion of millions of people with disabilities in education, housing, employment, sports, and more. Hatch said that even though he and Kennedy differed much on policy and phi
losophy, he “never doubted for a minute [Ted’s] commitment to help the elderly, the ill, and those Americans who have been on the outside looking in for far too long.”

The Kennedys did not do this work alone. They were often guided by dozens of organizations, agencies, and institutions serving and representing the disabled. Parents’ groups and specialized organizations representing the blind, deaf, physically disabled, mentally ill, and others demanded awareness, support, accommodations, research, and funding. And the Kennedys heard them. When Ted achieved passage of the ADA, he said, “Many of us have been touched by others with disabilities. My sister Rosemary is retarded; my son lost his leg to cancer. And others who support the legislation believe in it for similar special reasons. I cannot be unmindful of the extraordinary contributions of those who have been lucky enough to have members of their families or children who are facing the same challenges and know what this legislation means.”