RobDownSouth
BoycotDivestSanctio
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2002
- Posts
- 78,418
Rose Mary Kennedy...what a tragedy.
Rose Mary Kennedy was born during the literal peak of the Spanish Influenza outbreak, there was no obstetrician readily available when her mother's water broke, so a well-meaning nurse instructed her mother Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy to "keep your legs clamped tightly together until the doctor gets here" although she was in active labor. Poor Rosemary was oxygen deprived for two hours in her mother's birth canal.
She was diagnosed as "slow", eventually learning to read and write at a fourth grade level by age 15. thanks to two private tutors and one of the very first of the new "special education" teachers.
She had significant motor skills impairment. Her dad Joe Kennedy was named Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, so the entire Kennedy clan was presented to King George and Queen Elizabeth at a public ceremoney. Rosemary attempted to curtsy before the King and Queen, but stumbled and face-planted. The King and Queen simply smiled as if this happened all the time.....
Joe wanted to run for president in 1940 after Roosevelt's second term ended, but FDR threw off his timing by running for an unprecedented third term. Joe then groomed his two oldest kids Joe Jr and Jack for public office but thought Rose Mary would be a political liability. She was having Derpyesque violent mood swings and had the legendary "Kennedy promiscuity gene" and so Joe allowed doctors to convince him to let them perform a prefrontal lobotomy on her without telling his wife.
Rosemary regressed to about the mental age of a two year old and remained that way for the next 64 years, until her death in 2005.