The Missing Kennedy
Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff
Rosemary Kennedy, younger sister of President John F. Kennedy, was lobotomized in 1941 at age 23. In 1959, she was put out of public view at a remote facility in rural Wisconsin, where, for more than twenty years, she remained unvisited by family and non-family alike, until 1962.
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff (Liz) and her parents were likely the first non-Kennedy family members to visit Rosemary following her lobotomy. Liz was niece to Rosemary’s caretaker, Sister Paulus, a Catholic nun at St. Colleta, and she visited Rosemary on a regular basis for the next thirty-four years. Through their friendship, Liz discovered the person many had forgotten or never known.
In 2015, ten years after Rosemary’s death, Liz came forward with a fascinating book about the hidden daughter of America’s royal Kennedy family. “The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women” is truly unique. It is an eyewitness account of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy years, the first published by a non-family member, and it’s augmented by nearly 100 never-before-seen pictures of Rosemary after she was lobotomized.
Liz can shed considerable light on so many questions, the four biggest being:
- Why did no one visit Rosemary for more than two decades?
- What quality of life did Rosemary lead after her lobotomy?
- What should have been the correct diagnosis of Rosemary’s pre-lobotomy condition?
- And in what ways did immense good come from Rosemary’s tragic life?
This touching story of the intersection of two families will leave you with a unique portrait of the missing, but not forgotten, Kennedy.