Over the years following the lobotomy, Rosemary did recover some function — less than she had before the operation, but more than the immediate post-surgical period suggested she might ever have again. She relearned to walk, though with a limp that remained for the rest of her life. Her right arm was affected — palsied in some accounts, limited in its range of motion. Her speech never returned to anything approaching her pre-surgery level; she could manage words and phrases but not sustained, clear conversation.
She swam at Saint Coletta. She walked the grounds. She participated in activities within the institution. A photograph taken around 1974 shows her with Sister Paulus, one of her caregivers, in what appears to be a comfortable, familiar setting.
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, whose aunt was one of Rosemary’s primary caretakers at Saint Coletta and who wrote a book drawing on those family memories, has described Rosemary as popular among the residents and staff of the institution. She had a personality that remained, even after the surgery, capable of connection and warmth in some respects. She was known to the people who cared for her not as a symbol or a patient number but as a person with preferences and moods and a history.
What she did not have, for approximately twenty years after the surgery, was meaningful contact with her own family.
Joe Kennedy’s visits stopped after the first few years. The precise moment at which he stopped visiting is not established in public documentation, but multiple sources note that the visits ended. He apparently could not bear to see what the surgery had done, or so various accounts suggest — though this interpretation should be held as an inference rather than a documented fact.