Jennie Pilato Bianconi

Jennie P. Bianconi, a Registered Nurse who started her Public Health career in 1939, traveling the countryside of rural middle Tennessee to help eradicate communicable diseases, died on Saturday, August 17, 2019 at Shannondale Retirement Community in Maryville, TN, surrounded by the loving voices of her family. She was 99 years old.

Born in Oakfield, NY on November 15, 1919 she graduated from the local high school at 16, too young to attend nursing school, her dream, at that time. The next year she was accepted to the University of Rochester's School of Nursing where she earned her RN degree. The Kellogg Foundation granted her a scholarship to Vanderbilt University where she received a PHN, Public Health Nursing Certification. She sought her degree in Public Health when, through Vanderbilt, the State of TN offered her a scholarship to attend Columbia University in New York, the only university at the time that offered a BS in Public Health. In return she worked for the state of TN, based in Lewisburg, as a public health nurse during and after World War II until late 1946. She married Owen Bianconi in 1947, after he had returned from the Army Air Corps service in the Philippines during WWII.

She went on to work for Vanderbilt Hospital in surgery, she pursued a teaching degree from Peabody College to teach kindergarten, then went back to Nursing, as the Director of Nursing, at the American Red Cross, in Nashville, before retiring.

Jennie Bianconi was a very bright and loving person. She had the heart, the courage and the skills to help strangers and loved ones, change their lives for the better. She was a role model for all of us, loving, giving, teaching, as an outstanding, educated person, gifted to us before her time.

She was dedicated to her parents and her family. She was married for 64 years, raising a family of four. She is survived by her sister Frances, her children, Suzanne Duffey (Jeff), Mary Frances Restrepo (Bob), David Bianconi (Kristin); 11 grandchildren; and 5 great-grandchildren.

Jennie was beloved by all who met her. Services will be held at McCammon Ammons Click Funeral Home in Maryville, TN on Monday August 26, 2019 at 3:30 pm and an interment service at the National Cemetery in Nashville, TN will be held in October.

In lieu of flowers, "Give the gift of Life", donate blood at the American Red Cross in Nashville, or donate to Knoxville Young Life, P. O. Box 647, Knoxville, TN 37901.