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Married 60 years, couple enjoyed a good P.G. life together

Long time Prince George resident Rosanna (Sawatzky/Dyck) Konrad was born in 1932 in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Her parents Heinrick and Helena Sawatzky were German speaking Mennonites from near Kiev in Russia.
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Rosanna Konrad holds the picture of her late husband Dr. Daniel Konrad. In Prince George the Konrads enjoyed a wonderful life together.

Long time Prince George resident Rosanna (Sawatzky/Dyck) Konrad was born in 1932 in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Her parents Heinrick and Helena Sawatzky were German speaking Mennonites from near Kiev in Russia. They left in a wave of German Mennonite migration in 1925 and settled in Grande Prairie in 1926. She lost her father when she was four, leaving her mother with eight children. Her mother passed away when she was seven. Rosanna was adopted by Issak and Tina Dyck while her siblings were taken in by other families.

After high school she worked in Grande Prairie at a bank and attended the Baptist Leadership Training School in Calgary before going to Vancouver to train as a teacher in 1954.

In Vancouver a friend introduced her to Daniel Benjamin Konrad, a second-year medical student at the University of British Columbia. She completed her teachers training and taught in Surrey until June of 1957; she married Dan two months later. Rosanna taught in New Westminster for two years while Dan was finishing medical school, his internship and his residency training.

Dan was born in 1930 in LaGlace, Alberta the fifth of eight children. His parents were also Mennonites of German descent living in Russia. His family left the country in the same wave of migration as Rosanna's parents. They first immigrated to Mexico and then to Canada in 1927.

The Konrad family moved to Abbotsford in 1950 where Dan completed grade 13 at Philip Sheffield High School.

He studied Arts at UBC from 1951-54 and went on to attend medical school. Dan graduated from UBC in 1958 as a general practitioner, interned for one year at the Vancouver General Hospital and did one year of surgical residency at the Shaughnessy & Grace Hospital in Vancouver.

In 1960 they moved to Prince George to cover the general medical practice of Dr. John Willms for two years. The two years became three years and a medical clinic was formed between Drs. Dan Konrad, Dennis Clark and John Willms.

From 1967-69 the Konrad's, including three young children, lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo while Dan worked at a missionary hospital. It was there that Dan was the doctor that delivered their fourth child Erin, who was born in the small village of Kijiji in 1969.

In 1970 Dan did a three-year residency in surgical ophthalmology in Montreal at the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University Health Centre. He set up his own ophthalmology clinic in Prince George in 1973. Dan retired from his medical surgery practice in 1996 but continued to practice one day a week for the next 15 years at the Gurney Optical Clinic.

Dr. Daniel Konrad was inducted into the Northern Health Medical Hall of Fame in 2014 in recognition of 54 years of outstanding medical service to the community and the hospital of Prince George.

Dan and Rosanna have three children; Laurel Ann, Daniel Alan, and Nathan Paul. A fourth, daughter Erin Frances was lost in a tragic car accident in 1989 at the age of 19. They have nine grandchildren.

Dan and Rosanna are both charter members of the Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church which began as the Peden Hill Mennonite Brethren Church in 1960. Rosanna taught Sunday school and helped with Pioneer girls. She sang in the church choir for many years and was also a member of a triple trio called the Instruments of Praise. She is still an active member of the church and more recently volunteered with the Salvation Army quilters.

She loves to entertain friends and family on special occasions and writes song lyrics to fit those special occasions.

She enjoys writing poems and one of her favorite hobbies is scrapbooking. As each grandchild graduates from high school she creates a scrapbook album of their lives up to that point.

Rosanna and Dan have been strong supporters of the Ness Lake Bible Camp and the development work of the Mennonite Central Committee. They are also avid supporters of the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and sponsored their production of the Brahms Requiem in 2008 in memory of their daughter Erin.

Rosanna reflected back and said, "In 1967 we spent two years in the Belgian Congo in Africa as volunteers for the Mennonite Brethren Church and in 1992 our family traveled to Irapuato, Mexico where Dan's parents first lived when they came over from Russia.

"We traveled quite a bit as a family, volunteered through our church and spent many happy days out at our Ness Lake property. Our church and our faith were a huge part of our lives.

"We were married for 60 years when sadly Dan passed away due to a massive heart attack at the age of 87. Dan was a good husband, a good role model and father to our children and he loved me and our family. For him, his family was always first. I feel that God guided us through it all."