Irene “Rick” Whitehead, 93, died February 18, 2015 in Brentwood, Tenn., after a brief illness and complications of congestive heart failure. The mother of four, she was a longtime resident of the Suburban Hills community in West Knoxville and a member of All Saints Catholic Church. She and her husband, the late A. T. “Tom” Whitehead, moved to The Heritage at Brentwood in 2007 to be closer to their daughter’s family and attended Holy Family Catholic Church in Brentwood.
Irene Gilda Ricciardi was born on May 15, 1921, in Providence, R.I., the fifth and youngest child of Joseph Ricciardi, owner of Ricciardi Funeral Home, and Anna Sabatino. A first generation American and the first in her family to attend college, she graduated from the Rhode Island Hospital School of Nursing in 1943. At the outbreak of World War II, she joined the Navy Nurse Corps and, after graduating from nursing school, was stationed at Navy Pier in Chicago. A Navy doctor there, unable to pronounce her last name, began calling her “Ricky.” The nick name stuck and she was “Rick” to her friends for the rest of her life. She was stationed on the island of Guam in the Pacific where she met and married her husband, a Marine first lieutenant, in 1947.
She resigned her commission in the Navy to begin raising a family while her husband continued his career with the Marine Corps. Four children and many military moves around the country ensued over the next 20 years. At several of those locations she continued to practice nursing at hospitals and private physician’s offices. Upon her husband’s retirement from the Marine Corps in 1965, the family moved to Knoxville where they remained for the next 43 years.
In Knoxville, Mrs. Whitehead was an active member of the community. She volunteered to start a health clinic at the newly built Cedar Bluff Elementary School while continuing to raise her family. Later, she was a biometric screening nurse for Hooper Holmes, Inc., was active in Reach to Recovery, which helps in the rehabilitation of women recovering from breast cancer, and was President of the University of Tennessee Faculty Women’s Club.
Mrs. Whitehead enjoyed a long retirement traveling extensively with her husband in United States and Europe. She especially enjoyed watching their grandchildren grow into adults. After moving to The Heritage, she was elected to the Resident Council and made many friends there. She was an avid and skilled bridge player.
She is survived by two daughters, Ellen Sheridan (Jim) of Big Canoe, Ga., and Susan Campbell (Randy) of Brentwood; and two sons, Stephen Whitehead (Sheila) of Knoxville, and Ray Whitehead (Victoria) of Fairfax, Va. She is also survived by eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life mass will be held at 12:00 Noon Wednesday, February 25, 2015with a visitation two hours prior at Holy Family Catholic Church, 9100 Crockett Road, in Brentwood. Burial with Military Honors alongside her husband will be at a later date at the East Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery, Lyons View Road, in Knoxville. In lieu of flowers, donations would be appreciated to Catholic Charities, 3009 Lake Brook Boulevard, Knoxville, TN, 37909 or the American Cancer Society.