HOME | DD

Description
Stock for background:[link]
I was inspired by this song by Rasputina to dedicate a picture for Rose Kennedy. I know Its a bit simple and the concept has been done before and all that jazz but it was an image I couldnt get out of my head and after looking her up and finding out more about Rose Kennedy, I just HAD to do it. So this is for you, Rose.

She doesn't know the man
Who tries to push her wheelchair in the sand.
She just looks out to sea.
He's talking endlessly.

Oh, why won't he shutup?
I take my medicine
I crush the paper cup.
Oh, maybe he's my son
And he's come to set me free.

She knows that she forgot
That there's a story and she
Can't recall the plot.
Of course her family fought
Over the furniture.

Oh, I don't know why they
Have taken all my favorite things away
But one thing is for sure
I don't know what they were.

They say a stone is a marker
And that it has weight.
The say it's solid
But it can deteriorate.

The air is like a hand
Reminding her of all the things she's
planned.
Like air the thought is gone
never to come again.

We came out to the beach
To find the mind I've lost and cannot reach.
I used to keep it here.
It was much cleaner then.

They say a rose is a flower
and that it is red.
It blooms, it grows, it wilts
And then it is dead.

They say a stone is a marker
and that it has weight.
They say it's solid
But it can deteriorate.

They say a rose is a flower
and that it is red.
It blooms, it grows,
And then it is dead.

Oh, Rose Kennedy.

Information about Rose Kennedy:
Childhood-
She was christened Rose Marie Kennedy and commonly called Rosemary. To her family and friends, she was known as "Rosie". Her mother was Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, her father Joseph Patrick Kennedy.
Rosemary has been described as being a shy child whose I.Q. tests reportedly indicated a mild retardation. Diaries written by Rosemary in the late 1930s and published in the 1980s, reveal a happy, slightly backward young woman whose life was filled with outings to the opera, tea dances, dress fittings, and other social interests:
"Went to luncheon in the ballroom in the White House. James Roosevelt took us in to see his father, President Roosevelt. He said, 'It's about time you came. How can I put my arm around all of you? Which is the oldest? You are all so big."
"Have a fitting at 10:15 Elizabeth Arden. Appointment dress fitting again. Home for lunch. Royal tournament in the afternoon."
"Up too late for breakfast. Had it on deck. Played Ping-Pong with Ralph's sister, also with another man. Had lunch at 1:15. Walked with Peggy. also went to horse races with her, and bet and won a dollar and a half. Went to the English Movie at five. Had dinner at 8:45. Went to the lounge with Miss Cahill and Eunice and retired early."
She also was "presented" to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Britain. On her way out of the "presentation" she tripped and almost fell — an embarrassing faux pas.
Placid and easygoing as a child and teenager, the maturing Rosemary became increasingly assertive in her personality. She was subject to violent mood swings. Some observers have since attributed this behavior to her difficulties in keeping up with her active siblings as well as the hormonal surges associated with sexual maturation. In any case, the family had difficulty dealing with the often stormy Rosemary, who had begun to engage in physical fights and to sneak out at night from the convent where she was being educated and cared for—and her family feared that without proper supervision she might become pregnant or worse.
Lobotomy-
In 1941, when Rosemary was 23, her father was told by doctors that a lobotomy would help calm her "mood swings that the family found difficult to handle at home" [1]. Joseph Kennedy had the procedure performed by neurologist Walter Freeman, director of the laboratories at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., together with his partner, James W. Watts, MD, from the University of Virginia. Watts performed his neurosurgery training at Massachusetts General Hospital and later became chief of neurosurgery at George Washington University Hospital. Highly regarded, Dr. Watts became the 91st president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia.
At the time of the surgery the procedure was in its infancy. Freeman and Watts had only performed 66 previous lobotomies.
The following are the details of this particular case:
Dr. Watts performed the surgery while Dr. Freeman supervised. In an interview with investigative reporter Ronald Kessler, Dr. Watts described the procedure:
We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.
—James W. Watts (Kessler, 226)
Instead of producing the desired result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Rose Kennedy remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior, it left her completely incapacitated. "Rose was devastated; she considered it the first of the Kennedy family tragedies" (Kessler, 237).
Although Freeman performed more than 3,000 lobotomies on individuals with mental illness during his career, today, his lobotomy treatments are viewed as discredited by the mental health community.
Aftermath-
In 1949, Rosemary moved to the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children in Jefferson, Wisconsin, a residential institution for people with disabilities. Due to the severity of her mental condition, Rosemary became largely detached from the Kennedy clan, but she was visited on regular occasions by her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of the Special Olympics and an advocate for the disabled on Rosemary's behalf. Joe Kennedy also made donations to philanthropic agencies which he founded to help people with developmental disabilities.
Occasionally, Rosemary was taken to visit relatives in Florida and Washington, D.C, and visited her childhood home in Cape Cod.
Publicly, she was declared to be mentally handicapped. This was more socially acceptable in a political family than mental illness. "Only a few doctors who worked for the Kennedys knew the truth about Rosemary's condition, as did the FBI", due to a background check of Joe. Joe's attorney told them she had a "mental illness" (Kessler, 233).
Death-
Rosemary died from natural causes on January 7, 2005 at a hospital in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin at the age of 86, with her three surviving sisters Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Jean Kennedy Smith, and her only surviving brother Senator Ted Kennedy. Rosemary's death was the only natural death among the deceased children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy until the death of Patricia Kennedy Lawford from pneumonia on September 17, 2006.

If you're interested in her story and want to find out more, here's the link I found: [link]

Description
Stock for background:[link]
I was inspired by this song by Rasputina to dedicate a picture for Rose Kennedy. I know Its a bit simple and the concept has been done before and all that jazz but it was an image I couldnt get out of my head and after looking her up and finding out more about Rose Kennedy, I just HAD to do it. So this is for you, Rose.

She doesn't know the man
Who tries to push her wheelchair in the sand.
She just looks out to sea.
He's talking endlessly.

Oh, why won't he shutup?
I take my medicine
I crush the paper cup.
Oh, maybe he's my son
And he's come to set me free.

She knows that she forgot
That there's a story and she
Can't recall the plot.
Of course her family fought
Over the furniture.

Oh, I don't know why they
Have taken all my favorite things away
But one thing is for sure
I don't know what they were.

They say a stone is a marker
And that it has weight.
The say it's solid
But it can deteriorate.

The air is like a hand
Reminding her of all the things she's
planned.
Like air the thought is gone
never to come again.

We came out to the beach
To find the mind I've lost and cannot reach.
I used to keep it here.
It was much cleaner then.

They say a rose is a flower
and that it is red.
It blooms, it grows, it wilts
And then it is dead.

They say a stone is a marker
and that it has weight.
They say it's solid
But it can deteriorate.

They say a rose is a flower
and that it is red.
It blooms, it grows,
And then it is dead.

Oh, Rose Kennedy.

Information about Rose Kennedy:
Childhood-
She was christened Rose Marie Kennedy and commonly called Rosemary. To her family and friends, she was known as "Rosie". Her mother was Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, her father Joseph Patrick Kennedy.
Rosemary has been described as being a shy child whose I.Q. tests reportedly indicated a mild retardation. Diaries written by Rosemary in the late 1930s and published in the 1980s, reveal a happy, slightly backward young woman whose life was filled with outings to the opera, tea dances, dress fittings, and other social interests:
"Went to luncheon in the ballroom in the White House. James Roosevelt took us in to see his father, President Roosevelt. He said, 'It's about time you came. How can I put my arm around all of you? Which is the oldest? You are all so big."
"Have a fitting at 10:15 Elizabeth Arden. Appointment dress fitting again. Home for lunch. Royal tournament in the afternoon."
"Up too late for breakfast. Had it on deck. Played Ping-Pong with Ralph's sister, also with another man. Had lunch at 1:15. Walked with Peggy. also went to horse races with her, and bet and won a dollar and a half. Went to the English Movie at five. Had dinner at 8:45. Went to the lounge with Miss Cahill and Eunice and retired early."
She also was "presented" to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Britain. On her way out of the "presentation" she tripped and almost fell — an embarrassing faux pas.
Placid and easygoing as a child and teenager, the maturing Rosemary became increasingly assertive in her personality. She was subject to violent mood swings. Some observers have since attributed this behavior to her difficulties in keeping up with her active siblings as well as the hormonal surges associated with sexual maturation. In any case, the family had difficulty dealing with the often stormy Rosemary, who had begun to engage in physical fights and to sneak out at night from the convent where she was being educated and cared for—and her family feared that without proper supervision she might become pregnant or worse.
Lobotomy-
In 1941, when Rosemary was 23, her father was told by doctors that a lobotomy would help calm her "mood swings that the family found difficult to handle at home" [1]. Joseph Kennedy had the procedure performed by neurologist Walter Freeman, director of the laboratories at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., together with his partner, James W. Watts, MD, from the University of Virginia. Watts performed his neurosurgery training at Massachusetts General Hospital and later became chief of neurosurgery at George Washington University Hospital. Highly regarded, Dr. Watts became the 91st president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia.
At the time of the surgery the procedure was in its infancy. Freeman and Watts had only performed 66 previous lobotomies.
The following are the details of this particular case:
Dr. Watts performed the surgery while Dr. Freeman supervised. In an interview with investigative reporter Ronald Kessler, Dr. Watts described the procedure:
We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside," he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backwards. ... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." ... When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.
—James W. Watts (Kessler, 226)
Instead of producing the desired result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Rose Kennedy remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior, it left her completely incapacitated. "Rose was devastated; she considered it the first of the Kennedy family tragedies" (Kessler, 237).
Although Freeman performed more than 3,000 lobotomies on individuals with mental illness during his career, today, his lobotomy treatments are viewed as discredited by the mental health community.
Aftermath-
In 1949, Rosemary moved to the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children in Jefferson, Wisconsin, a residential institution for people with disabilities. Due to the severity of her mental condition, Rosemary became largely detached from the Kennedy clan, but she was visited on regular occasions by her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of the Special Olympics and an advocate for the disabled on Rosemary's behalf. Joe Kennedy also made donations to philanthropic agencies which he founded to help people with developmental disabilities.
Occasionally, Rosemary was taken to visit relatives in Florida and Washington, D.C, and visited her childhood home in Cape Cod.
Publicly, she was declared to be mentally handicapped. This was more socially acceptable in a political family than mental illness. "Only a few doctors who worked for the Kennedys knew the truth about Rosemary's condition, as did the FBI", due to a background check of Joe. Joe's attorney told them she had a "mental illness" (Kessler, 233).
Death-
Rosemary died from natural causes on January 7, 2005 at a hospital in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin at the age of 86, with her three surviving sisters Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Jean Kennedy Smith, and her only surviving brother Senator Ted Kennedy. Rosemary's death was the only natural death among the deceased children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy until the death of Patricia Kennedy Lawford from pneumonia on September 17, 2006.

If you're interested in her story and want to find out more, here's the link I found: [link]