Billie Atwood

A Celebration of an Extraordinary Life

Billie Atwood was born to Alburn and Louise Atwood in Vernal, Utah on September 4, 1951. She was the 4th of 6 children born to them. Her early childhood was filled with many happy memories of helping her family on their farm.

Billie had a great love of animals and nature. Because of her upbringing in farmland and very rural areas of Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, many of her stories from her early life involved being in nature and encounters with all sorts of animals. She had stories of moose, mountain lions, rattle snakes, bears, horses, and many wonderful memories of their family dog, King. She loved to camp and fish with her family when she was younger and being out in nature continued to be one of her favorite things throughout her entire life.

Billie loved serving at church over the years and was a proud member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her particular favorite were always the opportunities that she had to teach, especially the young children and youth. She studied the material so thoroughly and prepared her lessons so that she could teach in a way that made people think about things and maybe notice things that they hadn't considered before.

Aside from family, education was one of the most important things in Billie's life. She knew early in her childhood that she wanted to be a nurse and after high school had an opportunity to attend BYU to study nursing. She excelled in all of her classes and went on to be one of the first graduating students of BYU's brand new Graduate Nursing Program. Billie was a life-long learner and earned a second masters degree later in life from the University of Washington Nursing Program.

Some of her first experiences as a nurse were in OB in hospitals in Provo area in the maternity ward and in the Utah State Hospital in the Drug & Alcohol unit. She often referenced these first opportunities in her career as instrumental in gaining compassion to for all kinds of people from many different walks of life that she never would've been able to experience had it not been for these first jobs. This compassion and understanding of people, particularly from underprivileged and under-served communities, stayed with her throughout her 50-year career as a nurse. She worked in Utah, eventually moved to Pendleton, OR where she worked at the local hospital, and then moved on to be near family in the Seattle area in Washington. After 50 years in her career as a nurse, she retired in 2020 as an ARNP of Rheumatology at Valley Medical Center Clinic in Covington, WA.

We imagine there was a great day of rejoicing on the other side of the veil the morning of September 23, 2022 when Billie passed from this life to the next. She was with family and went very peacefully, exactly in the way that she had wished. She was preceded in death by her parents and all of her siblings, David, Layne, Kathleen, Joanne, and Janice. She is survived by nieces and nephews Justin Michael (Nikki) Hepworth, Erin (Jacob) Stewart, Alise (Thomas) Christensen, Nathan (Lisa) Rasmussen, and their children.

Graveside Services for Billie will be held Friday October 7, 2022 at 11:00am in the Maeser Fairview Cemetery under the direction of the Phillips Ashley Valley Funeral Home.

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