Billy Joe Doyle

Billy Joe Doyle was born to Doss and Evie Burrow Doyle on December 3, 1931 and grew up near Skullbone, Tennessee in a two-room house. He walked across several fields to go to a country school from 1st through 5th grade. Then the family moved to Milan.

Bill met Frances Redmon of Paris, Tennessee, when she would visit her grandparents in Milan. He graduated from Milan High School in 1950. On December 16, 1950, he and Frances were married.

Bill was a member of the Tennessee National Guard that was activated in 1950 and sent to Japan and Korea. He served as a member of the 2998 Treadway Bridge Company. After the war, he attended college at Memphis State University with Fran’s support. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1957.

Immediately after graduating, he took a job with the U.S. Public Health Service. He was employed for 34 years with field assignments in Memphis, Tennessee, Chicago, Illinois, Kansas City, Kansas, Fayetteville, North Carolina, Detroit and Lansing, Michigan, again in Chicago, and finally in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). At CDC, he was the leader of the STD field staff assigned to state and local health departments nationwide. The last five years before his retirement, he was the leader of the nationwide immunization field staff.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 69 years, his parents, his sister, Gladys McCollum, his brothers, Diddie and Ralph, and a granddaughter, Jennifer Molway. He is survived by his three daughters, Joella Molway (Lee), Sherrye Grotte, and Kathy Jenkins, five grandchildren, Jim and Scott Molway, Chuck Grotte, Katie Beth and Robert Jenkins, and seven great-grandchildren.