Rosemary Isabel Forbes was born on October 27, 1913, to James Grant Forbes and Margaret Tyndal Winthrop in Paris, France. James and Margaret Forbes had eleven children; James Grant Jr. (1906), John W. (1908), Griselda (1910), Angela (1912), Rosemary Isabel (1913), Eileen (1916), Monica (1916), Alastair (1918) , Ian (1920), Iris (1922), Fiona(1924). The first three children were born in America and the remaining children were born in France at the Forbes Estate just outside of Paris.

Rosemary lived in Boston and as a young adult, she sailed frequently across the Atlantic to visit her parents in Paris France, sailing in and out of Liverpool, England or Lisbon,  Portugal. She was a nurse for the Red Cross during in WWII and later a Social Activist.

Rosemary married Richard John Kerry in Montgomery, Alabama on February 8, 1941, but a newspaper clipping from England indicated that she quietly married Richard Kerry at the Winthrop Estate in Luray, South Carolina. She met Richard when he took a sculpture class at the resort of Saint-Briac, where the Forbes had built their family estate. They settled in Boston,  Massachusetts, where they had four children; Margaret (Peggy, 1941), John (1943), Diana (1947), Cameron (1950).

Rosemary died on November 14, 2002, in Manchester, Massachusetts. Rosemary was cremated at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge Massachusetts but the location where her remains are interned has been kept private by the family.

Rest in Peace Rosemary!

Love, Jan

Note: I have found that I am a cousin to Senator John Kerry and his family.  We are related through the Dudley lines of his family and mine. This discovery was made by using an iPhone app called “We’re Related”. The app has allowed me to break through many brick walls in the last twelve months