On 08/11/25 Nelson C. Tillou of Fayetteville, Pa. and formerly Hancock, Md. passed at home with his wife of 36 years by his bedside. He was the son of Joseph H. and Lillian N. Tillou and is survived by his wife Ida M. Oberholzer Tillou, eldest daughter Felicia Hennessy of Valders, WI and Teresa Crum of Alpharetta, GA, one grandson, two granddaughters, one great grandson, one great granddaughter and three nieces.
Born in Buffalo New York on 6/2/1938 he graduated from Hancock High School in 1956, Shepherd College (now Shepherd University) with a major in Biology in 1962 and completed graduate studies in Public Health at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland. He was the last surviving member of his High School’s varsity basketball team. He was a fairly good at basketball, not so good at soccer, and absolutely terrible at baseball.
He was employed as a Microbiologist Tech at Fort Detrick where he was infected with a bacterial agent with which he worked and quickly decided upon a career change.
Subsequently In May of 1963 he became a Sanitarian In Frederick County, transferred to Washington County and then to the Maryland Dept.of Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore.
He was Maryland’s 33rd Registered Sanitarian. He finished his career in Public Health as the supervising Sanitarian in the Division of Licensing and Certification responsible for inspecting Health Care facilities for Maryland State Licensing and federal regulations.
Eventually tiring of of traveling the entire state inspecting Nursing Homes and Hospitals, he even more tired of the endemic bureaucracy of state employment. Vowing to never enter in nor smell another Nursing Home he accepted a position of Infection Control Officer at the former Washington County Hospital, now Meritus Health Systems, in May of 1975. He developed its first comprehensive infection surveillance and reporting system and earned A.P.I.C. certification.
Sometime during the course of his hospital career the State of Maryland decreed, as part of its’ licensing requirements, that Hospitals had to employ a Risk Manager. Summoned to the President’s office he was asked “What do you know about risk management” he replied “Nothing, and was told “better learn, because you just became one”. As a result he was allowed to hire an R.N. for the infection control program, bought a book about Hospital risk management and set upon the task of being a Risk Manager eventually becoming conversant enough to convince the various regulatory agencies that surveyed Hospitals, none of which knew what risk management was either, that Washington County Hospital indeed had a risk management program and a Risk Manager. The “promotion” to Risk Manager, unfortunately, did not come with either a raise in salary or benefits. He was, as a nice gesture, allowed to hire a secretary of his choice.
He was employed long enough to see Meritus grow from a 400 plus bed Hospital with a management staff of 17 to a 200 bed facility with a management staff of over 100 and become every much a bureaucracy as the state government. He gladly retired in 2001 and post retirement worked in several gun stores, a shooting range and with his wife, ran a small business providing gun stores with holsters and other accessories.
He was a life member of the National Rifle Association, a certified firearms instructor, a member of the Waynesboro Fish and Game Club, a former member of the Chambersburg Pistol and Rifle club and a member of the Waynesboro Tiger Football Alumni and Chambersburg’s Corpus Christi Church.
Per his request there will be no viewing. Burial will be at the convenience of the family. Contributions to the Waynesboro Tigers Alumni Association’s Scholarship program or Corpus Christi Church in Chambersburg, PA are appreciated.
Grove – Bowersox Funeral Home, Waynesboro, PA, is handling the arrangements.
