To: All Faculty and Staff Members
From: Howard Knutson, Dean, College of Education
Date: 9 June 1976
This office has just been informed that Miss Grace Van Ness, formerly Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Education for Women, died at Westwood Convalescent Home in Sioux City, Iowa, on 4 June 1976.
A native of Denison, Iowa, Miss Van Ness earned the B. A. degree at Cornell College in 1911. After teaching Latin in schools in Iowa for several years, she came to the University as a student in 1918 and completed the M. Di. degree in physical education in 1919. She became an Instructor in the Women's Physical Education Department in 1919 and was associated with the University from that time until January 1972. Her retirement in 1954 was followed by eighteen years of part-time teaching as Assistant Professor Emeritus in the department.
Miss Van Ness earned the M. A. degree at Teachers College, Columbia University in 1930. She was known in the public schools through her work in Extension Summer Classes and as a consultant, and through "Keeping Time", a radio program in folk dance which was broadcast from the University station in the early 1950s. Her primary teaching interest was in folk and square dance and she retained a lively enthusiasm for teaching and participating in dance throughout her career at UNI. She was in part responsible for the development in the 1920s and 1930s of the Folk Dance Festivals which are still a part of the department's annual program.
She is survived by a sister, Mrs. Walter Kitson of Atlantic, Iowa. A sister, Loretta, preceded her in death on 1 June 1976. Interment for Grace and Loretta Van Ness was at Grandview Cemetery in Fayette, Iowa, on Sunday, 6 June.