The heart-wrenching loss of Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of John F. Kennedy, leaves her husband, Dr. George Moran, facing the daunting task of raising their two young children alone. Tatiana passed away at the age of 35 after battling blood cancer.
In a deeply personal essay published in The New Yorker just last month, Tatiana revealed her terminal diagnosis and lauded George for his unwavering support. Now, as he grapples with his grief, he must also manage his responsibilities as a doctor and care for their three-year-old son, Edwin, and one-year-old daughter, Josephine.
An Instagram statement from George, their children, and the Kennedy family announced Tatiana’s passing on Tuesday, stating, “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts.”
Tatiana’s essay, released on the 62nd anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, disclosed she had been given just one year to live. In it, she expressed profound gratitude for George’s dedication, noting, “George did everything for me that he possibly could.”
She recounted his sacrifices with touching humor, sharing how he managed her medical appointments, insurance discussions, and even slept on the hospital floor by her side. Despite her moments of frustration, particularly with ginger ale preferences, George remained patient and supportive throughout her treatment journey.
‘He talked to all the doctors and insurance people that I didn’t want to talk to; he slept on the floor of the hospital; he didn’t get mad when I was raging on steroids and yelled at him that I did not like Schweppes ginger ale, only Canada Dry.’
She added, ‘He would go home to put our kids to bed and come back to bring me dinner. I know that not everyone can be married to a doctor, but if you can, it’s a very good idea.
‘He is perfect, and I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.’
Tatiana Schlossberg, a 35-year-old mother of two, died on December 30, just six weeks after she revealed she was battling blood cancer
In an essay announcing her diagnosis, Schlossberg praised her doctor husband, George Moran (left), 36, for his support throughout her treatment
Schlossberg was the daughter of former US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s only surviving child, and designer Edwin Schlossberg.
She studied at Yale for her undergraduate degree, where she met her future husband, Moran, now an attending urologist at Columbia University.
Schlossberg later earned a master’s degree in United States history from the University of Oxford and pursued a career as a journalist.
The couple married in 2017 at the Kennedy compound on Martha’s Vineyard, with former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick officiating the ceremony.
They lived in a $7.68 million apartment in New York City’s Upper East Side, but in Schlossberg’s New Yorker essay, she revealed she spent much of the last year of her life in and out of the hospital.
Schlossberg said she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, in May 2024.
Doctors only found the disease through routine blood tests after she gave birth to her second child.
In her piece, Schlossberg said the diagnosis came when a doctor noticed an imbalance in her white blood cell count.
The couple met while studying at Yale, and share two children, Edwin, three, and Josephine, one
Schlossberg (pictured with her mother and brother meeting Prince William) was the daughter of former US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s only surviving child, and designer Edwin Schlossberg
They lived in a $7.68 million apartment in New York City’s Upper East Side, but in Schlossberg’s New Yorker essay, she revealed she spent much of the last year of her life in and out of the hospital
‘A normal white-blood-cell count is around four to eleven thousand cells per microliter. Mine was a hundred and thirty-one thousand cells per microliter,’ she wrote.
‘It could just be something related to pregnancy and delivery, the doctor said, or it could be leukemia,’ she recalled.
Schlossberg was eventually diagnosed with a ‘rare mutation called Inversion 3’ which ‘could not be cured by a standard course.’
Schlossberg said she was bewildered by the news, and said despite being nine months pregnant, she was routinely exercising and ‘didn’t feel sick.’
‘I did not – could not – believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew,’ she wrote.
Schlossberg said she spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital after giving birth, before she was transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering for a bone-marrow transplant.
She then underwent grueling chemotherapy at home, and in January, she joined a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy against certain blood cancers.
In a devastating blow following the news, Schlossberg said she was eventually told by doctors that she had just a year left to live.
Schlossberg said she was eventually told by doctors that she had just a year left to live
The couple married in 2017 at the Kennedy compound on Martha’s Vineyard, with former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick officiating the ceremony
Schlossberg wrote in her essay: ‘For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry.
‘Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.’
Schlossberg’s tragic death is the latest hammer blow for her mother Caroline, who has been beset by a series of horrific tragedies over the course of her life.
Her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, five days before Caroline’s sixth birthday.
Five years later Caroline’s uncle Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
In 1994, Caroline’s mother Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis – the former First Lady of the United States – died of lymphoma at the age of sixty four.
And in 1999 Caroline lost her only sibling, John F. Kennedy Jr. JFK Jr, also known as John John, crashed his plane into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha’s Vineyard.
The accident also killed his wife Carolyn Besette and Carolyn’s sister Lauren Bessette.
Caroline has been married to Edwin Schlossberg since 1986 and has two other children, 37-year-old Rose and 32-year-old Jack.
