Lillian Griffin

Lillian Griffin

AGE: 92 • Manahawkin

Lillian Griffin (nee Pund) of Manahawkin passed away on June 11, 2013 at the age of 92 in the Samaritan Hospice Center at Virtua Memorial Hospital, Mt. Holly, NJ. She was born September 1, 1920 in Cincinnati, OH., where she later attended Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing and received her RN. During WWII, she served as a commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corp and was stationed in the Pacific. There she met a young radio operator named Norman Griffin, her future husband of 50 years, when her unit boarded the hospital ship USS Marigold. She often said that the first day they met she told her friend she'd met the boy she was going to marry. When the USS Marigold became the first US hospital ship to enter Tokyo Bay after the war, Lillian and Norman were married in Tokyo shortly thereafter. In the decades following the war, they moved many times for her husband's career, with six children born in five different cities. After the children were older, she returned to nursing as an RN at various hospitals in the region, including Rancocas Valley Hospital, Trenton State Hospital and the New Lisbon Developmental Center. When Southern Ocean County Hospital (SOCH) first opened, she became a nursing supervisor there. She and her family moved to the Beach Haven West section of Manahawkin in 1971, where she and Norman lived until his death in 1995, and where she remained until Superstorm Sandy. In the aftermath of the storm, she moved in briefly with her daughter Barbara's family in Willingboro, and then more recently to the Care One Assisted Living in Moorestown, before ultimately transferring to Virtua Memorial Hospital.

She is survived by her two sisters - Bernice Needham, Michigan; and Audrey Kasik, Illinois - and her six children: Barbara Bell (Richard Koch); Karen Kenney (Robert); Ronald Griffin (Shelley); Beverly Dillon; Robert Griffin (Anne); and Gail Smithson (Robert). In addition, she is also survived by nine grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren.

Services will be held at Thos. L. Shinn Funeral Home, 10 Hilliard Dr., Manahawkin, NJ, on Tuesday, June 18, 2013. Viewing will be at 10:00 AM, with services at 11:00 AM.

.Published in Asbury Park Press on June 17, 2013 Print | View Guest Book .Lillian Griffin
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www.shinnfuneralhome.com.
Arrangements under the direction of:
Thos. L. Shinn Funeral Home
10 Hilliard Drive | Manahawkin, NJ 08050 | (609) 597-7740