{"product_id":"2940150977679","title":"The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women","description":"Rosemary (Rosie) Kennedy was born in 1918, the first daughter of a wealthy Bostonian couple who later would become known as the patriarch and matriarch of America's most famous and celebrated family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Koehler was born in 1957, the first and only child of a struggling Wisconsin farm family.\u003cbr\u003eWhat, besides their religion, did these two very different Catholic women have in common?\u003cbr\u003eOne person really: Stella Koehler, a charismatic woman of the cloth who became Sister Paulus Koehler after taking her vows with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. \u003cbr\u003eSister Paulus was Elizabeth's Wisconsin aunt. For thirty-five years?indeed much of her adult life?Sister Paulus was Rosie Kennedy's caregiver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd a caregiver, tragically, had become necessary after Rosie, a slow learner prone to emotional outbursts, underwent one of America's first lobotomies?an operation Joseph Kennedy was assured would normalize Rosie's life. It did not. Rosie's condition became decidedly worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the procedure, Joe Kennedy sent Rosie to rural Wisconsin and Saint Coletta, a Catholic-run home for the mentally disabled. For the next two decades, she never saw her siblings, her parents, or any other relative, the doctors having issued stern instructions that even the occasional family visit would be emotionally disruptive to Rosie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowing Joseph Kennedy's stroke in 1961, the Kennedy family, led by mother Rose and sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, resumed face to face contact with Rosie. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was also about then that a young Elizabeth Koehler began paying visits to Rosie.\u003cbr\u003eIn this insightful, poignant, and important memoir, based in part on Sister Paulus' private notes and augmented by nearly one-hundred never-before-seen photos, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff recalls the many happy and memorable times spent with the \"missing Kennedy.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on independent research and interviews with the Shriver family, she tries to come to grips with Joseph Kennedy's well-intended decision to submit her eldest daughter to a still experimental medical procedure, and his later decision to keep Rosie almost entirely out of public view. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe looks at the many parallels between Rosie's post-operative life, her own, and those of the two families.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd, most important, she traces how, entirely because of Rosie, the Kennedy and Shriver families embarked on an exceedingly consequential campaign advancing the cause of the developmentally disabled?a campaign that continues to this day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTen years after Rosie's death comes a highly personal yet fitting testimonial to a sad but truly meaningful and important life.","brand":"Bancroft Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068827648240,"sku":"2940150977679","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940150977679_p0.jpg?v=1763757007","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940150977679","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}