Joan Mosenfelder Pirzio-Biroli (Jan P-B) Davenport, Iowa September 3, 1926 –Mercer Island June 15, 2015 after a long and courageous struggle with Alzheimer’s.

Raised during the depression, she was no non-sense, intelligent, creative and spirited. She met Giacomo Pirzio-Biroli (“Jimmy”) in Baltimore. They married in 1948.

Her first career was as an art historian at the Baltimore Art Museum and the National Gallery of Art.

In 1952 they moved to Mercer Island where they settled in the home they occupied for the rest of their lives.

Here she shifted her passion to botany. It began with her own garden which started as a thicket of pussy willows and maple saplings and was transformed over 50 years into an Eden of beauty and wonder. Early on she volunteered at the Arboretum and later went back to the UW for a Masters’ in Botany, while raising a family, caring for her mother, editing the Arboretum Bulletin and throwing show stopping Christmas Eve parties. As a volunteer and employee of the UW Arboretum, she was respected by colleagues and friends alike for her passion of “plants”. She mentored many young botanists who admire her to this day. After her retirement from the Arboretum she returned as a volunteer continuing to lead her popular educational tours of the park.

She and Jimmy adapted to each other’s passions. She became an experienced camper and duck hunter. He became a fabulous botanical photographer and chauffer able to maneuver his old station wagon into the most unlikely places to find wild flowers or collect seeds. With their kids they camped all over the wild west. The only acceptable campsite was one without a table or an outhouse. The last trip they took together before Jimmy’s passing in 1998 followed the “Great Flood” to its origins in Missoula along the coulees ripped open 2 million years ago. She never lost her passion for beauty in the natural world or fine arts.

In her retirement she loved reading and playing games with her grandchildren whom she found immensely entertaining.

She is survived by her children both of Mercer Island: son Andrea, his wife Jeany and two children Alex and Micaela; daughter Lucia, her husband Michele Marquardi and daughter Cora; and by her brother Donn Mosenfelder of New York and his family.

In lieu of flowers please send donations to Goucher College in Jan’s name.