Rosemary

**Rosemary** is a major character in *You Feel It Just Below the Ribs* and long-time colleague of Miriam Gregory. She was a renowned physiologist and researcher for the New Society.

## Biography

### Gateway Childhood Centre

Rosemary arrived at the Gateway Childhood Centre first as a student, and sought to learn the Watercolor Quiet method from Dr. Miriam Gregory so that she could practice it on others, but Dr. Gregory said that she could never manage to perform the process correctly. In Dr. Gregory's words, "She did not have the patience for it." Dr. Gregory also stated she did not complete her "entire program" due to her own impatience, though whether she meant a training program or the Watercolor Quiet therapy itself is unclear.

She instead began to work alongside Dr. Gregory at the Centre, and Dr. Gregory named her as her assistant multiple times both in narration and dialogue. She and Dr. Gregory worked well together, though she described Rosemary's demeanor as cold and unsentimental. According to Dr. Gregory, they balanced each other with their entirely different world views and methodologies. She took a great interest in the Watercolor Quiet, and apparently helped Dr. Gregory improve and refine her craft.

Rosemary came to Dr. Gregory in the Gateway Centre's garden with concerns about a newspaper feature criticizing her work written by Edith Marshall. The editors at the Yuriatin Press could find no evidence of this article's existence; surviving records of Marshall's monthly column covered personal anecdotes about her time in the theatre industry, poems, and short stories intended as comedy. It is possible that Rosemary made up this article knowing that Dr. Gregory, as a rule, did not read the news, in order to make her feel like publicly defending her work was more important. Dr. Gregory claimed Rosemary published a point by point rebuttal addressed to Secretary Marshall, but as the original article supposedly never existed, it is possible that this is a mistake of memory as well; perhaps a misremembering of what was in fact a letter to Secretary Marshall, as she did appear to visit Gateway Childhood Centre soon afterword and profess her support for their methods.

On the matter of Edgar Hartley, when Dr. Gregory came to Rosemary with her concerns about his lapses in progress, Rosemary suggested that the problem was not with their programs, but rather was "in Edgar." She said that she was attempting to find a genetic cause for this resistance to the process, as the boy's parents were not fairing much better in their counseling.

After the boy appeared to finally lose his memories, Rosemary took a great interest in his frequent states of depression. As the Gateway Childhood Centre began to lose faith in Dr. Gregory, Rosemary suggested she take some time off from seeing Edgar, and allow Rosemary to to take over his case. Dr. Gregory described Rosemary's "pleading eyes" with regard to this request, and reported that she showed genuine surprise when denied it. Dr. Gregory offered that she could work with any of the other children in the facility, if working directly with children was now an interest to her, but she declined.

Rosemary walked in on Dr. Gregory having an unauthorized late evening session with Edgar and expressed skepticism and bemusement. After sending Edgar back to bed, she informed Dr. Gregory that the head of the Department of Childhood Development had arrived that morning, and would be taking Edgar away into their custody the following day.

The next morning, Edgar was found to be missing. Dr. Gregory returned to Gateway after searching his parents' home, and Rosemary came into her office urgently. She told Dr. Gregory that Edgar had been found dead in an empty lot, his body torn open and not immediately recognizable.

Dr. Gregory was distraught, but Rosemary implored her to listen to what she had to say. She told Dr. Gregory to leave Gateway and get out of town, because it was not safe for her with the IID in the area asking pointed questions. She claimed Secretary Marshall would be arriving soon to smooth over the case, and see that the Hartley parents were both well-compensated and silent on the matter. She said that Dr. Gregory had already been removed from her position and would be 'taking the fall' for the events, though she promised she will not be charged with anything.

### The Institute

#### Reencountering Dr. Miriam Gregory

More than a decade after parting ways, Rosemary approached Dr. Gregory while she was out for coffee in Baltimore. She told Dr. Gregory she was looking for work, and sympathized with her when she described her difficulties getting a proposal for a research center approved by the Societal Council. Dr. Gregory claimed that Rosemary had worked in the prison industry, and recounted some comments she had made about the prison industry's lack of innovation. Rosemary then offered to help Dr. Gregory with her research, suggesting that they join forces and build a research center without the need for Council approval. When Dr. Gregory inquired how they would achieve such a thing on their own, Rosemary said she had "a little something up [her] sleeve."

Several months later, Rosemary called Dr. Gregory and invited herself over to dinner with Dr. Gregory and her wife, Teresa Moyo. Rosemary charmed Teresa with praise for Dr. Gregory, then informed Dr. Gregory that that the plans for the Institute were moving forward. Dr. Gregory expressed reservations, and did not commit to the project at that moment. She contacted Rosemary to say she was certain about involving herself with the Institute only after finding her wife sitting in a trancelike state in the dead of night outside the hospital where she had given birth to her two children.

On the same phone call, Dr. Gregory described Rosemary asking her if she knew what happened to Edgar. After some prodding, Dr. Gregory wrote that she said yes, she knew what happened to Edgar. She then claimed Rosemary offered to show her her "notes." Dr. Gregory described herself as "revolt[ed] and fascinat[ed]", and she agreed that she would like to see the notes, though did not describe them in detail in her memoir.

#### Dr. Gregory's Growing Suspicions

Rosemary assured Dr. Gregory that she would take care of all of the logistics of the Institute, and Dr. Gregory need only focus on her work with her patients. Dr. Gregory described the site as "idyllic," and said that there was improvement in her wife's condition after she started working and researching at the Institute, even though Teresa was never an inpatient. Rosemary would frequently give tours of the facility to prospective contributors, showing off the features Dr. Gregory had insisted on that were designed to make participants' time at the Institute more comfortable.

However, Rosemary refused to share any details of her own research with Dr. Gregory, nor details of where they got their funding. The more Dr. Gregory inquired about them, the more Rosemary avoided her questions, until eventually Rosemary's assistant Meg told Dr. Gregory that Rosemary was intentionally avoiding her. When Meg did eventually call to arrange a meeting between Rosemary and Dr. Gregory, it was accompanied with a note left on her desk warning her not to attend. As the meeting was to take place in the mysterious south wing, the implication was that Meg believed Rosemary intended to subject Dr. Gregory to "carpentry."

## Identity

There are two prevailing theories as to the identity of Rosemary, which is left murky and unclear by Miriam's manuscript. The first, proposed by the notations from the Yuriatin Press, is that Rosemary is actually Dr. Rose Haverstock, who did work at Gateway Childhood Centre alongside Dr. Gregory and was "open about the affection and regard they had for one another." The second, proposed by fans, is that Rosemary is actually Amy Castillo, the former secretary of Michael Witten and apparent creator of the Institute.

### Rose Haverstock

Dr. Haverstock was instrumental in the crafting of standardised processes for the Age Ten Laws and the processes contained within. She was consulting from the early testing stages and approved the final wording of the laws. The editor(s) of Miriam's manuscript speculated that Dr. Gregory had personally recommended her for the task using her connection to Nora Bostwick, but had no evidence for this. She also advised on the writing of the Career Placement Act and the Equalities Act.

At some point before 1956, Haverstock University was founded in Baltimore, presumably named after Dr. Haverstock. The university offered a wide range of subjects for study.

From 1956 until 1963, she worked as a consultant for the Department of Corrections in Manitoba, Former Canada. She advised on issues related to prisoner well-being, and many of her practices were adopted worldwide. During this time, she also founded the Seattle Addiction Intervention Home in 1956, as well as the Trauma Recovery Institution which had outposts in New York, Chicago, and Dallas. She also founded the Global Aid Organization, a disaster relief charity.

Despite proposing the theory themselves, the editors from the Yuriatin Press cast considerable doubt over the idea that Rosemary was Dr. Haverstock, being unable to corroborate any of the details Miriam laid out in her manuscript as Dr. Haverstock died sometime before 1996. In an Interlude they went as far as to say that interpreting Rosemary as Dr. Rose Haverstock would give the reader no choice but to conclude the entire memoir was a work of incendiary fiction, rather than an honest autobiographical account.

> *"At worst, this part of the manuscript is a deliberate attempt to smear Dr. Haverstock's real medical clinics, which have provided crucial aid and succor to those who need it, for decades now. This suggests a spiteful pettiness that beggars belief. We can see no reason for trying to discredit such a prominent pillar of the community other than jealousy."* --Yuriatin Press, p.275
>
>

### Amy Castillo

Several compelling clues point to Amy being the true identity of Rosemary. Although she was Director Witten's secretary in 1953, Amy studied some sort of science in school.

In September 1954, Amy applied or was recruited to work at the North American Department of Childhood Development in Baltimore, which was also where Miriam lived and worked at that time. After a year of working in the Childhood Development Department, she was promoted from project manager to Director of New Educational Initiatives. In 1961, Amy put together a proposal for an institute that was allegedly intended to streamline the separation of families, but Director Witten was horrified by the overly clinical, harmful-sounding procedures outlined and rejected the project from government funding.

Amy decided to leave the Department of Childhood Development after her proposal failed to go through. She took an executive position in the private sector, likely KR Development, which had recently backed out of a contract to build new schools and Childhood Centres and had Vishwathi Ramadoss on the Advisory Board. Ramadoss was in contact with Rosemary in the early 70s, as a phone appointment with the Secretary interrupted a conversation she was having with Dr. Gregory. Although exact dates were not given, Amy's departure from the Department of Child Development would have been a couple of years before Miriam's "chance" meeting with Rosemary in the 60s.

In her manuscript, Miriam was quite clear that although it wasn't entirely justified in hindsight, she did think of Rosemary as her assistant and apprentice while at Gateway, rather than an equal and a scientist in her own right. While Dr. Haverstock worked alongside Miriam at Gateway, the Yuriatin Press editors do not state that she ever worked with Miriam in an assistant capacity, suggesting they were instead equal colleagues. Like Rosemary under Miriam, Amy under Michael was also overlooked and little-regarded.

## Additional info

* "Rosemary" is thought to be a combination of the names Rose and Mary. Alternatively, it could be in reference to the herb of the same name, which comes from the Latin "ros marinus" meaning "dew of the sea". The name Rose usually refers to the flower, while Mary is the English form of Miriam
* Despite it being established that Miriam's memory of names had degraded considerably by the end of her life (her own alias "Elsbeth Morton" transforming into "Elizabeth"), the corruption of "Amy" into "Rosemary" may appear less plausible than from "Rose". However, the latter half of Miriam's memoir mentioned roses with some frequency (below). To Miriam's mind, Amy's name may have become Amy-Rose, turning to Rose-Amy, and since that didn't sound quite right, changed a final time to Rosemary.
	+ The roses-turned-peonies decorating the balcony during her reimagined proposal to Teresa
	+ Rosemary's tour of the Institute's rose-garden which other sources suggest smelled like lavender
	+ The roses decorating Teresa's surprise dinner that was ruined by Miriam's late-night investigation into Rosemary's activities.
* Miriam mentions towards the end of her memoir the ease at which an alternate identity could be created in the early days of the New Society[citation required]. It is possible that Amy Castillo was was an alternate identity used by Rosemary, and that she had forged documents to create Amy Castillo, in the same way that Miriam had forged documents for Elsbeth Morton, allowing her to obtain a job and live a life as Amy for the time it suited her.
* It is possible that Dr. Rose Haverstock's full name was Rose Mary Haverstock. Miriam's use of "Rosemary" could be a misremembrance of her name, or a more familiar nickname that Rose choose not to use later in a professional capacity, and therefore records of Dr. Rose Haverstock do not indicate her middle name.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.149
2. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.197
3. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.150
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.151-54
5. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.158
6. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.173
7. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.180-82
8. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.185-86
9. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.198-99
10. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.200-02
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.256-59
12. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.265-68
13. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.271-72
14. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.280
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.293-94
16. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.284-85
17. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.316
18. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.359
19. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.159-60
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.273-75
21. ↑ Season 8, Cassette #6: It's All About Balance!
22. ↑ Season 3, Reel #9: September 13, 1954
23. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.205
24. ↑ Season 3, Reel #10: June 21, 1961
25. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.319
26. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.369
27. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.231
28. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.294
29. ↑ Season 1, Episode #5: Focus, Nose
30. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.302