Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter (25 page)

Eunice (left) and Rosemary wave from aboard the USS
Manhattan
as they embark for England in 1938 to join their family.

©
Bettmann/Corbis

Rosemary and her father at the 1938 opening of the London Children’s Zoo. Joe, now the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and his family attracted near-constant media attention. This required vigilant control over Rosemary; note her father’s firm grip on her arm.

©
Bettmann/Corbis

Reporters greeted Kathleen, Rose, and Rosemary in the embassy garden as the women were leaving in May 1938 for their presentation at court to Britain’s king and queen. Rosemary’s gown was a favorite of the British press.

Daily Herald Archive/National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Rosemary was delighted with all the attention. With only two weeks to prepare, she mastered the special curtsy and other social protocols required of young debutantes who gathered at the event.

Courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Joe’s appointment as ambassador was a brilliant political and social achievement. The large Kennedy family offered endless fascination for a British public still overtly prejudiced against Catholics. Here the family poses for the press in 1938. Left to right: Eunice, Jack, Rosemary, Jean, Joe Sr., Teddy, Rose, Joe Jr., Pat, Bobby, and Kathleen.

Photograph by Dorothy Wilding/ © William Hustler and Georgina Hustler/National Portrait Gallery, London

While in England, Rosemary flourished under the patient and gentle guidance of Mother Isabel of the Assumption school. Mother Isabel was an early adopter of the Montessori educational method.

The Religious of the Assumption, Sister Therese Duross

Rosemary at twenty years old. Her beauty drew attention while on a tour of Ireland with her sisters in 1938.

Rosemary with her Kennedy spirit in evidence, Kilcroney, Ireland, 1938.

Unidentified press photograph

Kathleen started spending more time with newfound friends in England, leaving to Eunice the role of next-oldest sister to Rosemary. The younger Kennedy siblings and Rosemary enjoy a tour of Italy in 1939. Left to right: Bobby, Eunice, Jean, Pat, Rosemary, and Teddy.

Courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Rosemary and her father at an embassy social event, 1939. Rosemary’s intellectual disabilities and unpredictable social skills required careful choreographing by the family at such events. Here Joe once again maintains a tight grip on his daughter’s arm.

©
Peter Hunter/Nederlands Fotomuseum

At Eunice’s debut and court presentation in 1939, a year after her own, Rosemary attracted much attention from admiring young men. Eddie Moore watches carefully as a young man asks Rosemary for a dance and she places his name on her dance card.

©
Peter Hunter/Nederlands Fotomuseum

In spite of looming war, the Kennedys kept Rosemary at the Assumption school, which had moved out of London to the safer English countryside. With Rose and all the other children back in the United States, Eddie and Mary Moore saw Rosemary frequently (here in 1940) while her father traveled and attended to his job as ambassador.