BLUE ASH — Geneva Rubins, the last member of the Bethesda Deaconesses, died Sunday at Hospice of Cincinnati in Blue Ash.

        “Geneva's death represents the passing of an era,” said L. Thomas Wilburn Jr. of Blue Ash, director of Bethesda Services. “She was one of a group of dedicated women who spent their lives helping others.”

        The Bethesda Deaconesses founded the old Bethesda hospital at Oak Street and Reading Road in 1896. Affiliated with a national order of German Methodists, they focused their mission on German families.

        Ms. Rubins, 84, joined the Deaconesses in 1936 when she moved to Cincinnati from her native Kenton, Ohio.

        She completed two years at the Cincinnati Training School for Deaconesses and Church Workers and graduated from the Bethesda Hospital School of Nursing. She then joined the nursing staff at the hospital.

        Ms. Rubins received a full scholarship to the University of Minnesota. When she returned to Bethesda in 1945 after earning a bachelor's degree in nursing, she began teaching.

        In 1950 Ms. Rubins was appointed assistant director of Bethesda's nursing school. While working full time, she earned a master's degree in education from the University of Cincinnati in 1954.

        She became the school's director in 1960. During Ms. Rubin's tenure, the Bethesda School of Nursing earned its first eight-year accreditation from the National League for Nursing.

        She left her post in 1971 to become an educational consultant for the Ohio Board of Nursing Education and Nurse Registration.

        In 1975 she became director of the Miami Valley Hospital School of Nursing in Dayton; she retired in 1983.

        Ms. Rubins returned to Cincinnati in 1986 and volunteered at Bethesda Hospital for the next 10 years..

        “Her heart was in nursing,” said Tom MacFarland, of Union Township, manager of Bethesda North Hospital Pastoral Care. “She was interested in building bridges between people and she trusted in God's grace to be sufficient to make this happen.”

        Ms. Rubins was a member of the Auxiliary of Bethesda Hospital and served on the board for American Nursing Care Inc. She also was adviser to the Student Nurse Association of Ohio, consultant on the National League for Nursing board of review of accreditation of diploma programs, and was a site visitor for the U.S. Public Health Service Division of Nursing.

        She was the first recipient of the Betty J. Turner Memorial Award, presented by the Auxiliary of Bethesda Hospital in 1995.

        Ms. Rubins was a member of the Hyde Park Community Methodist Church.

        There are no immediate survivors.

        Services have been held. Burial was in Spring Grove Cemetery.

        Memorials: Bethesda Foundation, P.O Box 710784, Cincinnati, 45271-0784.

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