JoAnn E. Billman, a retired registered nurse who also had a second career as an au pair, died Jan. 22 at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center of complications from a stroke. The longtime Towson resident was 79.

The daughter of Lawrence Bevenour, a stonemason, and Helen Bevenour, a homemaker, JoAnn Elizabeth Bevenour was born and raised in Mount Olive Township, Adams County, Pa.

After graduating in 1954 from St. Joseph Academy in McSherrystown, Pa., she earned a nursing degree from the St. Joseph School of Nursing in Lancaster, Pa.

She began her nursing career working for a physician, then worked in the late 1950s in the labor and delivery room at the Gettysburg Hospital in Gettysburg, Pa.

In 1966, she moved from New Oxford, Pa., to Towson and began work in the cardiac care center at what is now the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.

She was a staff nurse at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium at the time of her retirement in 1995.

Upon retiring, she worked for a decade as an au pair for several families.

Her husband of 40 years, Burnell B. Billman, a warehouseman, died in 1998.

Mrs. Billman enjoyed sewing and doing crossword puzzles.

Plans for a celebration of Mrs. Billman's life, to be held in April, are incomplete.

She is survived by a son, Mark Billman of Parkville; two daughters, Amy Billman and Suzanne Billman, both of Parkville; a brother, Jerry Bevenour of Apex, N.C.; three sisters, Julie Thomaston of Brookhaven, Pa., Josita Smith of Norristown, Pa. and Jane Blevins of Virginia Beach, Va.; and a granddaughter.

— Frederick N. Rasmussen