Obituary of Sylvia Redick Kongelbeck

Sylvia Kongelbeck passed away on January 24  2024.  After a long illness she succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease and Uterine  cancer.

Sylvia was born in Lowell Massachusetts .  Her father repaired factory assembly equipment and her mother worked part time in a bank.

Sylvia always wanted to be a nurse.   In high school she worked at a local hospital.  On graduation, she enrolled in the nursing school at Boston college.   She was a pioneer in that Boston College had just recently started accepting women. 

On graduation, Sylvia worked in pediatrics in Boston.   She decided she wanted to know more and wanted to enter an advanced practice nursing program.   The only one she could find was at UCLA.  She drove alone to California and entered the Clinical Nurse Specialist program.   After graduation she specialized in pediatric neurology.   She worked for several years at the Children’s Hospital of LA and wrote several research papers there.  She later worked at UCLA’s Matell Childrens Hospital.   All in all she had more than 40 years of experience.

Sylvia loved her patients and their parents and they loved her back.  It was very demanding as there were very few cures.  She was well known as an expert the nursing aspects  of the Kitogenic diet for the treatment of otherwise intractable epilepsy

In her younger years Sylvia was quite active.   She skied, rode bicycle’s and traveled.  

Sylvia  met her husband, Knut, on a ski trip to Aspen and they were largely inseparable after that.  The skied all over the United States and Canada and even made one trip to the Italian Alps.  They regularly biked, usually on the LA bike path.    

Sylvia planned to do more traveling but her  disease put an end to that.   As it was she traveled to Norway, Germany, Alaska, and Hawaii and took a road trip  along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Maryland.  Sylvia’s favorite place in the world is Monterey California.  She found a hotel right next to the water with waves breaking next to the rooms.       .

Another major factor  in Sylvia’s life was the Catholic Church.   Sylvia lectored for many years and eventually became the coordinator of the English language lectors.  She participated in a number of church functions.   She was planning to become an eucharistic minister but again her disease interfered.

  Even through the ravages of her horrible disease, she was never angry or bitter and tried to cooperate in every way.   She was an angel. 

Sylvia is survived by her husband Knut, her nephew Thomas ,

Spencer. her sister Mary Francis Fawcette and her niece by marriage Valerie Spencerd