Rose Marie Kennedy 1896-1968

KENNEDY, DONOVAN, HEPP

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 6/12/2011 at 17:54:02

Funeral Rites Thursday for Rose Kennedy
Rose Marie Kennedy, 71, died at 10 a.m. Monday [February 19, 1968) at Holy Family Hospital after many years of illness with arthritis.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, the Rev. James Fangman officiating. Burial will be at St. Patrick’s Cemetery.

Rosary will be said at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Friends may call at Fuhrman Funeral Home Wednesday and until time of the funeral.

Miss Kennedy was born Oct. 28, 1896, at Wallingford, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Kennedy. She was educated in rural Emmet County schools and graduated from Estherville High School in 1915.

She was a member of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.

Miss Kennedy went to Excelsior Springs, Mo., after graduating from Estherville High School, hoping to get relief from arthritis. Later she went to Washington, D.C., to be with her sisters, Clara and Betty, who were employed in the War and Navy Departments in World War I.

A doctor in Washington told her she might get relief from her ailment by living on the desert at Tucson, Ariz., so Betty and Clara resigned their Washington positions and the sisters came to Estherville for Christmas in 1920, and then went to Tucson, accompanied by their father.

They lived there a year and a half while Betty and Clara attended Arizona State University [University of Arizona] at Tucson.

When they returned to the family farm near Wallingford, Rose was still on crutches. She had been on crutches when she graduated from High School

When Clara became postmaster at Estherville, they moved to their present home where Rose operated a card shop and magazine agency. She was confined to a chair and hadn’t walked for nearly 40 years.

She attended the 50th reunion of the High School class of 1915 in 1965 in a wheel chair and enjoyed visiting with her classmates.

She did her work by gliding along on a chair for more than 40 years, maintaining a cheerful independence, in spite of constant pain.

Surviving are three sisters, Betty Kennedy, of Los Angeles, Calif., Clara Kennedy of Estherville, Mrs. G. M. (Kathryn) Donovan of Estherville; and several nieces and nephews.

Preceding her in death were her parents, a sister, Mrs. Tom Hepp of Jackson, Minn., who died April 24, 1966; two brothers, Francis James Kennedy who died March 3, 1966; and Edward Kennedy who died March 9 [10], 1910. (Estherville Daily News, Estherville, IA, February 20, 1968)