Viola Brown

1936 - 2017

BROWN Viola Davis, 81, widow of Percy Hunter Brown, was born April 8, 1936 and went home to be with the Lord Friday, December 22, 2017. A native of Lexington, KY, she was a daughter of the late Donnie Davis, Sr. and Mable Davis. Viola joined the Historic Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church at 7 years of age where she sang in various choirs and served as a Sunday School Teacher, President and Instructor of the Forty-Year Christians Group and Married Couples Club Counselor. Viola was a graduate of Dunbar High School, Nazareth School of Nursing, and the UK College of Medicine Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program. Her nursing career began in 1955 when she became the first African-American admitted to a school of professional nursing in Lexington, KY, and culminated in the appointment to Executive Director of the State Office of Public Health Nursing by Governor John Y. Brown, Jr. The first African-American State Director of Public Health Nursing in the United States; during her administration the number of nurses practicing across Kentucky's 120 health departments grew from 350 to 1400. She was elected President of the Kentucky Public Health Association, inducted into the University Of Kentucky's College Of Public Health Hall of Fame, a Kentucky Colonel, and a member of Chi Eta Phi Nursing Sorority, Inc. A loving and devoted sister, wife, mother, grand-mother and friend; Viola leaves to cherish her memory, five children: Clarence, Michael, and Bonnie Brown, Lexington, KY, Donna and husband Winston Lansden, Lexington, KY and Linda Brown, Bowie, MD, sister Josephine Robinson, Houston, Texas, five grandchildren, Evan and Constance Brown, Zion, Josiah, and Briana Lansden, and a host of family and friends. In addition to her parents and husband, Viola was preceded in death by siblings Alphonzo Davis, Donnie Davis, Jr. and Shirley Davis Dawson. Visitation will be Friday, December 29, 11:00 a.m. at the Historic Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, 540 West Maxwell Street, Lexington, KY. Funeral Service will follow at 1:00 p.m., officiated by the Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Peoples, Jr., and interment at the Lexington Cemetery. Arrangements by Hawkins-Taylor Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you donate to Bluegrass Hospice Care, The Kentucky Nurses Association, The American Red Cross, or the organization of your choosing.