Ione W. Olson, BS OT ‘58, 89, died Oct. 8 at the Villa St. Vincent home in Crookston, Minn. She was born in Glenwood, Minn., on April 20, 1921, the daughter of Edgar and Florence (Wuest) Wittwer. She attended all 12 grades and graduated co-salutatorian in 1939 from Glenwood High School, Glenwood, Minn. She attended Milwaukee-Downer College in Milwaukee. In 1944, she graduated with a diploma in occupational therapy. She was first employed as a registered occupational therapist at the Veterans Hospital in St. Cloud, Minn., and then Fargo, N.D. It was at the Fargo VA Hospital that she met Ivan Iver Olson. They married in Bemidji, Minn., on February 20, 1950, and they spent the next 44 years between the Glenwood and Greater Grand Forks areas.
     In 1954, Ione joined the University of North Dakota faculty as an assistant professor and established the OT department. She earned her BS degree in OT at UND in 1958. In 1960, she was awarded a scholarship by the March of Dimes to attend a psychiatric OT program in Omaha, Neb. She was an instructor at UND until 1980 when she retired.