Anna Bowman Blizard Obituary

BRISTOL, TN - Please join family and friends to celebrate the lives of Anna Bowman Blizard, formerly of Johnson City, and Marvin Blizard, formerly of Kingsport, at an inurnment on Saturday, September 2, which would have been their sixty-third wedding anniversary. The ceremony in the mausoleum at Glenwood Cemetery in Bristol will start at 10:00 a.m. A rooftop reception at the Bristol Hotel will follow.

Ann was raised mostly in the historic Montrose Court apartment building in Johnson City. She attended South Side Elementary School and Science Hill High School, graduating in 1955. In 1960, she obtained a nursing degree from East Tennessee State College.

Marvin was born and raised in Kingsport. A resident of the Howard Hill neighborhood, he went to Andrew Jackson Elementary School and Dobyns-Bennett High School, graduating in 1954. In 1958, he obtained a degree in mathematics from East Tennessee State College.

Ann and Marvin met while students at East Tennessee State. They were married at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Johnson City on September 2, 1960. They moved to Washington, D.C., where Marvin worked as a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory and Ann worked as a nurse in a doctor's office. Later, they moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs and in 1964 bought a house in the Ravensworth Farm neighborhood of Springfield, where they lived for the rest of their lives. In the 1970s, Marvin earned a master's degree in underwater acoustics from Catholic University in Washington and Ann earned a master's degree in psychology from George Mason University in Fairfax. Marvin worked for decades as a scientist with the Office of Naval Research in Arlington and Ann worked as a nurse in a doctor's office in Annandale. They celebrated their sixtieth anniversary in 2020. Marvin passed in 2021 and Ann in 2022. They were both 85 years old when they died. They are survived by their only child, Rob.

Their ashes will be laid to rest in the same Glenwood mausoleum where the remains of Ann's sister, Jill Bowman Childs, and her husband, Les Childs, are inurned. Jill and Les lived for decades in Bluff City. For many years, Ann and Marvin spent significant time in the Tri-Cities area taking care of Jill and Les, as well as Marvin's mother, Cecile Blizard of Kingsport, in their final days.