Sisterhood’s special bond
She has been remembered as the sister of Jack, Bobby, and Teddy.
But if you must think of this remarkable woman as someone’s sister, think of her as Rosemary’s.
Because it was Rosemary Kennedy who made Eunice who she was, Rosemary who inspired her towering accomplishments.
As children, the first and third Kennedy girls were separated by three years and not much else. Eunice was always with her older sister, born with mild mental retardation. Whatever Rosemary’s other limitations, she could take part in family sporting events, and Eunice - fiercely competitive even by Kennedy standards - was usually by her side.
The sisters sailed together in family boat races, and sometimes Eunice got frustrated with Rosemary.
When Eunice delivered her eulogy at Rosemary’s funeral in 2005, she recalled yelling, “For God’s sake, Rosie, pull in the blasted jib! ’’ Eventually, Rosie complied. Eunice said Rosie’s distant, happy smile never left her, despite the shouting. The sisters roomed and traveled together when their father, Joe, was ambassador to Great Britain. Rosie loved to dance and dress up and have her nails painted. As Eunice recalled, Rosie ate too much in those days, and she too little.
Within the safety of her family, Rosemary thrived, despite her disability. But in her early 20s, she became moody and erratic, sometimes disappearing from school for hours at night. Without telling his family, Joe Kennedy had his eldest daughter lobotomized in 1941. The procedure that was supposed to ease Rosie’s distress left her a shell of her former self. She was sent to live in an institution in Wisconsin.
The family did not speak publicly of Rosemary for almost 20 years, until Eunice wrote about her sister in the Saturday Evening Post in 1962.
The article was enormously influential, and tremendously brave for its time, though it made no mention of the lobotomy. Here was a member of the nation’s most famous family taking on a topic that nobody wanted to address, revealing Rosemary’s trials to the world, arguing that people with mental disabilities shouldn’t be hidden away.
Eunice was determined to give other kids with intellectual disabilities the kind of full, active childhood Rosie had, so she started a camp for them at her Maryland home, Timberlawn. Camp Shriver eventually grew into the global institution that is now the Special Olympics. Along the way, Eunice pushed her brothers to work for policies that revolutionized the way the world treats people with disabilities. (Her relentless determination made them her beleaguered servants, even after they’d ascended to the White House and the US Senate.)
By the mid-1960s, Eunice was in charge of her sister’s care. Rosemary traveled to Timberlawn for visits. She learned the names of her grand-nieces and -nephews, and when she spoke, it was most often of her mother, Rose.
“Rosie was always the last one out of the pool,’’ Eunice recalled, in the eulogy. “She was always the first to dinner . . . She was always at Mass, patient and attentive; she always had her Rosary and her faith.’’
Eunice couldn’t undo what had happened to Rosemary: the hidden history, the years of shame. But her work could - and did - change millions of other lives.
Eunice was never comfortable accepting credit for her achievements, which rival those of her brothers. Even at a tribute to her in 2007, the woman who many allowed might have been president if only she’d been born a man tried to pass the praise along - to Rosemary.
“I am lucky that I experienced the sting of rejection as a woman who was told that the real power was not for me,’’ she said at the JFK Library and Museum. “I am lucky that I saw . . . Rosemary treated with the most unbearable rejection.
“It’s really that simple,’’ said Rosemary’s sister. “Love gave me confidence and adversity gave me purpose.’’
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at abraham@globe.com 