Career
Born Patricia O"Brien to Thomas and Rose O"Brien, she was raised in New York City where she worked for a brokerage firm. She met John "Jack" Janus (1910-1991), whom she married in the early 1950s. Her husband went on to become a pharmacist, and his work eventually transplanted the family (which by then included two sons and one on the way) to Rochester, New New York Her collection Love in the Time of Anthrax was released by FootHills Publishing in 2005.
Her last volume is Synchronicity, published by FootHills in June, 2006.
She created a number of mixed media pieces over the years which were displayed in various area exhibits, including Rochester"s Center at High Falls Gallery, "Lincolnshire Art", and the "16x20" and, in May 2006, "Text & Texture II", which featured what would be her final piece, "Pain."
She had a career as a hospital nurse Upon her retirement she worked in Rochester as a chaplain at Highland Hospital, and an oncology nurse at the Rochester hospice, Isaiah House.
Battling cancer herself for nearly a year, she died on Friday, June 9, 2006, at age 74, at Highland Hospital. The night before, she had given a reading to a full house at Barnes & Noble in Pittsford, New York for Synchronicity, a collection of poems spanning the years since 1970.
The book had just been released that day.
She continued her work as a chaplain and nurse up until a few weeks before her death and was still working on a chapbook of poems about New Mexico.
