JFK's Assassination 60 years on | A look at John F Kennedy’s siblings and children, what happened to them?

John F Kennedy, JFK, was born on May 29, 1917 to Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Joseph Kennedy Sr. In 2020, the last surviving sibling of John F Kennedy, passed away at 92, her name was Jean Kennedy Smith. His other siblings were Joseph Kennedy Jr (killed during World War 2), Robert F Kennedy (killed in 1968), Kathleen Kennedy who died in a plane crash in 1948, Rosemary Kennedy died in 2005 followed by Patricia Kennedy in 2006. Eunice Kennedy Shriver died in August 2009, and in the same month, the youngest of the Kennedy clan, Edward Kennedy, also died of brain cancer. 

JFK and his wife Jackie married on September 12, 1953 and two years later, Jackie’s first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, a year later she gave birth to a stillborn daughter who was born by Caesarean and was informally named Arabella. Jackie then had Caroline in 1957 and John in 1960. During her fifth pregnancy, Jackie was airlifted to hospital after suffering from acute stomach and back pains. She gave birth to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963 but he died 39 hours after his premature birth. 

What happened to John F. Kennedy Jr.?

John. F Kennedy Jr, his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette tragically died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, when their single-engine plane (John F. Kennedy Jr was the pilot), crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The History Channel reported that “At Martha’s Vineyard, Kennedy was to drop off his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, one of his two passengers. From there, Kennedy and his wife Carolyn, where to fly on to the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod’s Hyannis Port for the marriage of Rory Kennedy, the youngest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy. The Piper Saratoga aircraft never made it to Martha’s Vineyard.”

His plane was reported missing and despite an intensive rescue operation, after two days, the operation turned to recovering the bodies rather than finding the survivors. Divers found their bodies on July 21, 1999.

What happened to Caroline Kennedy?

Caroline was only five years old when her father JFK died. It was her nanny, Maud Shaw who told her about his death. After studying at college, she married Edwin Schlossberg in 1986 and graduated from Columbia Law School. She has three children, Rose, Tatiana and John known as ‘Jack.’ Caroline served as the U.S ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 and has served as the U.S ambassador to Australia since 2022. She is the only surviving offspring of JFK and Caroline Kennedy.