Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson
Authors: Kate Clifford Larson
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Joe wrote in early December. “It showed a lovely spirit for you to write and pleased both Mother and me very much to think you are so appreciative and also that you feel that you are studying as hard as I know you can and are doing.” He noted her efforts to learn skating—a difficult endeavor considering Rosemary’s problems with complex coordination and athletic activities—with positive humor, a hallmark of Joe’s parenting style. “I hope skating turns out to be lots of fun . . . Be sure to wear a big pillow where you sit down so that when you sit on the ice (and I know you will) you won’t get too black and blue.”
Jack, whose own boarding-school antics and lack of attention to his studies generated more than a few patient but scolding letters from his father, was encouraged by Joe Sr. to cheer Rosemary on, too: “It would do Rose[mary] good if you would write her . . . You know it is very important that we have a good job done up there this year.”Jack, like his brother Joe, could be counted on to help Rosemary feel important. At one point, Rose wrote the headmaster of Choate, asking him to let Jack leave school briefly to attend a dance that Rosemary had asked him to: “The reason I am making this seemingly absurd request is because the young lady who is inviting him is his sister, and she has an inferiority complex. I know it would help if he went with her.”
Rosemary’s best friend in Brookline, Mary O’Keefe, is mentioned frequently in Rosemary’s letters to her parents. The two went to dances, movies, and plays together. They played badminton, hockey, and other sports. They did other things that teenage girls did: go shopping, have their hair and nails done, compare tips on girdles, dresses, and shoes. Rosemary reported that she played bridge with Mary and her family.Her degree of success at the complicated game is unknown, but clearly the O’Keefes were offering her a variety of challenges she seemed to enjoy outside of the classroom. Her family paid for extra lessons in badminton, and private companions accompanied her to museums and other outside events, enhancing her academic lessons. And yet Rosemary attended Girl Scout meetings where “learning the names of trees,” she reported to her mother, was a task she was finding a bit difficult.
Rosemary’s persistent chatter about social activities caused her parents great concern. She reported in January that she had purchased a cosmetic compact for $1.50, and had had her hair waved and her nails manicured for an upcoming dance that Jack and Mary’s brother John O’Keefe were accompanying the girls to. She delighted in her “blue evening dress, silver slippers,” and a silver hair clip. No matter what event she reported to her parents, she was sure to describe what she wore.Rosemary cherished clothes and pretty things, encouraged, perhaps, by her mother and others. Even as a small child she was drawn to the latest fashions featured in shop windows at Coolidge Corner, near the Kennedy home in Brookline. Eddie Moore, as her godfather, delighted in buying her a new dress every year. “My dear Rosemary,” Moore wrote during the spring of 1923, when Rosemary was four years old, “This season they are showing such wonderful and pretty little frocks for little women that I regretted not having you alongwith me to help me choose. I feel if you had been along we both would have decided on this little party dress so I am sending it to you with love and Easter greeting.”
If Rosemary exhibited her mother’s fashion consciousness and attention to her looks, she also shared her father’s love of socializing. In a typical letter, her animation over social news overshadows any reporting of academic achievements:
Darling Mother and Daddy,
The Chauffer drove Mary O Keefe and I to Adams House on Friday night. thats Where we met Joe [Kennedy] and John O Keefe at ten past eight. Then Mary went with Joe in his car to the dance. I went with John
Jack, whose own boarding-school antics and lack of attention to his studies generated more than a few patient but scolding letters from his father, was encouraged by Joe Sr. to cheer Rosemary on, too: “It would do Rose[mary] good if you would write her . . . You know it is very important that we have a good job done up there this year.”Jack, like his brother Joe, could be counted on to help Rosemary feel important. At one point, Rose wrote the headmaster of Choate, asking him to let Jack leave school briefly to attend a dance that Rosemary had asked him to: “The reason I am making this seemingly absurd request is because the young lady who is inviting him is his sister, and she has an inferiority complex. I know it would help if he went with her.”
Rosemary’s best friend in Brookline, Mary O’Keefe, is mentioned frequently in Rosemary’s letters to her parents. The two went to dances, movies, and plays together. They played badminton, hockey, and other sports. They did other things that teenage girls did: go shopping, have their hair and nails done, compare tips on girdles, dresses, and shoes. Rosemary reported that she played bridge with Mary and her family.Her degree of success at the complicated game is unknown, but clearly the O’Keefes were offering her a variety of challenges she seemed to enjoy outside of the classroom. Her family paid for extra lessons in badminton, and private companions accompanied her to museums and other outside events, enhancing her academic lessons. And yet Rosemary attended Girl Scout meetings where “learning the names of trees,” she reported to her mother, was a task she was finding a bit difficult.
Rosemary’s persistent chatter about social activities caused her parents great concern. She reported in January that she had purchased a cosmetic compact for $1.50, and had had her hair waved and her nails manicured for an upcoming dance that Jack and Mary’s brother John O’Keefe were accompanying the girls to. She delighted in her “blue evening dress, silver slippers,” and a silver hair clip. No matter what event she reported to her parents, she was sure to describe what she wore.Rosemary cherished clothes and pretty things, encouraged, perhaps, by her mother and others. Even as a small child she was drawn to the latest fashions featured in shop windows at Coolidge Corner, near the Kennedy home in Brookline. Eddie Moore, as her godfather, delighted in buying her a new dress every year. “My dear Rosemary,” Moore wrote during the spring of 1923, when Rosemary was four years old, “This season they are showing such wonderful and pretty little frocks for little women that I regretted not having you alongwith me to help me choose. I feel if you had been along we both would have decided on this little party dress so I am sending it to you with love and Easter greeting.”
If Rosemary exhibited her mother’s fashion consciousness and attention to her looks, she also shared her father’s love of socializing. In a typical letter, her animation over social news overshadows any reporting of academic achievements:
Darling Mother and Daddy,
The Chauffer drove Mary O Keefe and I to Adams House on Friday night. thats Where we met Joe [Kennedy] and John O Keefe at ten past eight. Then Mary went with Joe in his car to the dance. I went with John
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