We lovingly remember Jane Ann Gephardt, who passed away peacefully on January 13, 2024, surrounded by family in her beloved Naples, Florida.

True to her name and Nebraska roots, Jane was as sturdy as they come. She was born on June 2, 1942, in Grand Island, Nebraska to Adolf and Celeste Cimfel. Jane's father passed away when she and her brother Tom were young. Celeste married John Byrnes who adopted and raised his children with love.

After graduating from St. Bonaventure grade school and Columbus High School, Jane journeyed to Chicago in the fall of 1960 to attend Northwestern University where she majored in English and Political Science. There, a junior named Dick Gephardt helped her move into her freshman-year dorm. When he dropped a box of her more personal items during the move, Jane's good humor charmed Dick and they began a courtship that later became a marriage and a lifetime together.

Hard-working, fun, and full of tenacity, gumption, and courage, Jane embarked on a journey around the world before she married Dick on August 13, 1966.

After their wedding, Dick and Jane settled into life in Dick's native St. Louis, where he began working as a lawyer at Thompson Mitchell and Jane started a position with the Brown Shoe Company.

After welcoming Matt in 1970, and then Chrissy in 1973, Jane supported Dick's transition to a political career beginning with the St. Louis Board of Alderman in 1971 and then a campaign for U.S. Congress in 1976.

Jane continued to raise her children and then she and Dick welcomed Kate in 1977, taking them to their activities and games, helping them with their homework, and all the while keeping up with her job as an administrator at a pediatric medical practice, serving on the Board of The Children's Inn at NIH, and supporting Dick through his 14 congressional terms and two presidential campaigns. Jane also loved her dogs Shane, Bonnie, Rogue and Zach.

Jane is survived by Dick and her three children: Matt Gephardt and his wife, Tricia of Atlanta, GA, Chrissy Gephardt and her wife, Christina of Annapolis, MD, and Kate Greenberg and her husband, Neil of McLean, VA, as well as Jane's brother Tom Byrnes and his wife Elaine of Longmont, CO.

Jane also leaves loving memories with her eight grandchildren: Marc and his wife, Maayan, Nicole, Richard, AJ, and Ana Greenberg; Truman and Ernest Gephardt; and George Gephardt.

Jane was kind, generous, selfless, empathic, and always put herself second to the needs of others. She treated others with authenticity, love, and kindness and lived her life with grace and humor. She is the personification of the Golden Rule.

We'd like to thank Julie Tan and Marlon Munoz for their loving care of Jane.

In lieu of flowers, we would ask that donations be made to the Gephardt Institute at Washington University in St. Louis in Jane's honor: http://gephardtinstitute.wustl.edu.