JOHN GIOVANELLI

1930 - 2020

JOHN GIOVANELLI  November 28, 1930 - May 5, 2020  
Retired NIH plant scientist John Giovanelli, 89, of Kensington, MD, died at Suburban Hospital following a recent fall. Born in Taree, New South Wales, Australia, his father was Grantal Elwin Giovanelli, a school headmaster, and his mother was Doris ("Dot") Eileen Dennison, a homemaker. He is survived by a younger sister, Judith McLaren, a retired music educator and pianist living in Johannesburg, South Africa, and three nephews: Roger Zoio of Johannesburg, Stephen Zoio of Melbourne, Australia, and Philip Zoio of Suffolk, England. An intellectual with a quiet, gentle temperament, John had a wry sense of humor and was a beloved neighbor and friend. Growing up, he enjoyed fun athletic activities like body surfing, tennis, and pingpong. Among his youthful adventures was a six-week solo trip on a freighter across the Pacific. He competed in English Ballroom Dancing with his first wife Edna Gankerseer, who died in 1988. With his second wife Martha Tsukiyama, he enjoyed camping, hiking and RV-ing across America and Europe. Martha died in 2015. As cat lovers, their favorite was a Siamese named "Roo', who traveled with them and whom they often walked on a leash. John earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from the University of Sydney, a PHD at the University of California, Berkeley, and a postdoctoral fellowship from The Johns Hopkins University. He begin his career at the National Institutes of Health in 1965 as Principal Investigator in the greenhouse laboratory of General and Comparative Biochemistry. He retired in 1995.  John was a devoted member of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, MD, where he was an active member of the Alliance. He was a supporter of many other causes, including Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring, MD. The date of a memorial service through the auspices of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, Bethesda, will be announced later.