The untimely passing of Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s 35-year-old daughter, due to cancer adds another sorrowful chapter to the life of John F. Kennedy’s last surviving child, already marked by significant loss.
At the tender age of five, Caroline experienced the profound loss of her father, who was assassinated during a presidential parade in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
Tragedy struck again five years later when her uncle, Robert Kennedy, met a similar fate while campaigning for the presidency in Los Angeles in 1968.
In 1994, Caroline faced the heart-wrenching death of her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who succumbed to lymphoma at the age of 64.
The so-called ‘Kennedy curse’ seemed to strike once more with the tragic demise of her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., in 1999.
JFK Jr., Caroline’s sole sibling, lost his life at 38 when the small plane he was piloting crashed near Martha’s Vineyard. The crash also claimed the lives of his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren.
The incident left Caroline the only remaining survivor of President Kennedy’s immediate family, and after years of heartbreak, she elected to not hold a public memorial service.
Instead, she scattered his ashes into the stretch of the Atlantic off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard where their father met his fate.
At the time, Caroline was only 41. She was in the midst of building her own family, with longtime husband and Manhattan artist Edwin Schlossberg.
Tatiana Schlossberg (left), passed away Tuesday morning at age 35, weeks after revealing she was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year. She is seen with her mother Caroline Kennedy in Manhattan as a teen in 2006
Kennedy – a former US diplomat – is seen here with (l-r) sister-in-law Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, brother JFK Jr, and husband Edwin Schlossberg. Both her brother and Bessette-Kennedy died in their 30s during a plane crash in 1999
After marrying in 1986, the two welcomed three children: Rose Schlossberg, 37; Tatiana, and youngest Jack, who is 32.
Tatiana would later become a successful journalist, writing for publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and Bloomberg over the years.
Her mother, meanwhile, was named the US’s ambassador to Japan by then-President Barack Obama – a position she held until Donald Trump’s first term. She also served on both of Obama’s election campaigns.
Following Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden, she was named an ambassador again – this time for Australia.
In September 2024, she revealed she would be leaving her ambassadorial position regardless of the result of the presidential election.
In late November 2025, Tatiana revealed she had already been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, at the time.
She made the disclosure in an essay for The New Yorker titled ‘A Battle With My Blood‘, where she detailed how doctors found the disease through routine blood tests following the birth of her second child last in May 2024.
‘It could just be something related to pregnancy and delivery, the doctor said, or it could be leukemia,’ the mother-of-two wrote.
Kennedy also lost her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, to lymphoma at age 64. She is seen alongside her brother at their mother’s 1994 funeral
Kennedy is seen here alongside her late daughter Tatiana at her brother’s funeral in 1999. Tatianai – a successful journalist – passed away Tuesday night
Two-year-old Caroline is pictured with her parents John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, in July 1960, three years before her father’s murder
Tatiana was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma in May 2024. Aside from her mother, she leaves behind a husband and two children, who mourned her on Tuesday
She spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital after giving birth before being transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering for a bone-marrow transplant, she said.
The disease was resistant to standard chemotherapy, as well a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy – a type of immunotherapy against certain blood cancers, Tatiana said.
She also condemned her cousin RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric, calling the health secretary ‘mostly an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family’.
An unfortunate update from the JFK Library Foundation’s social media accounts came on Tuesday.
‘Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,’ it read.
The note was signed by Caroline, her husband, their kids, and other members of the Kennedy family.
