Jane B. (Bourne) Konrad

Jane Konrad passed away peacefully at age 94 on August 19th, 2022, while in hospice care following an illness. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Mark in 2015, to whom she was married for more than 65 years.

Jane was born in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky, the second of two daughters of James Porter Bourne and Wilner T. Bourne. After finishing high school, Jane attended the University of Louisville, where she would meet her future husband Mark Konrad, who completed medical school there. They married in December 1949, and they remained married until Mark’s death.

After graduating from the University of Louisville with a bachelor’s degree, Jane attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where she earned her master’s degree in psychology at a time when relatively few women pursued advanced degrees. Afterward, she and Mark would move together to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he would complete his residency training. In 1954, the Army called Mark back into service, and they were stationed for the next two years at Ft. Eustis, in Virginia.  

In 1956, Mark was hired to chair the Radiology Department for a new hospital in Western Pennsylvania, a place where they would spend the next 57 years. They would raise their children together there, and Jane would go on to put her academic background to good use, first as a high school science teacher at Sewickley Academy. She then moved on to work as the Education Outreach Coordinator for the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and finally as the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Regional Center for Science Teachers through the Education Department at the University of Pittsburgh. She spent over 40 years working to help develop teaching curricula for local area science teachers. During this time, she instilled in her own children the importance of education and encouraged and ensured their ability to pursue their studies to whatever extent possible.

Outside of her work, she had many eclectic interests, including painting, drawing, bookbinding, needlepoint, sewing, embroidery, and scrapbooking to name a few. She was also an avid collector of all kinds of glass.

She was passionate about nature and the environment and shared with her husband a special appreciation of botany and plants, especially flowering azaleas, rhododendrons, and herbs. Together, she and Mark maintained a large garden in their Western Pennsylvania backyard for more than 40 years, where each spring and summer they entertained friends, family, and visitors from the regional rhododendron society, the Pittsburgh herb society, and many other local organizations. She remained most passionate, however, about science and trying to find ways to educate both students and teachers about the importance that a basic understanding of science has for society.

She will be greatly missed by all those who knew her over the years, most especially her family and close friends. Her immediate family is most grateful for the excellent care that she received while she was a patient at the St. Vincent’s hospice facility in Indianapolis, where the wonderful and caring staff ensured that she was always treated with dignity and made to feel as comfortable as possible during her final days.

A private celebration of life will take place at a later date for the immediate family.

Bussell Family Funerals is privileged to assist the family in arrangements.

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