A memorial service for a former long-time NIU employee will be Dec. 16 at the Wesley Foundation, 633 W. Locust.

Ann Congdon Bates, who died Saturday, Nov. 25, spent 14 years as dissertation adviser in the graduate program, as well as one year as a faculty member in the English department and two more as general editor of the NIU Press.

After a long bout with cancer, Bates died at the Leader Nursing Center, Jersey Shore, Pa. She was cremated at the Wildwood Crematory in Williamsport, Pa. Her burial place is in a family cemetery plot in Birmingham, Ala.

Her family has requested people make donations in Bates’ memory to organizations supporting cancer research.

Bates was born in Birmingham on Independence Day 1933. She received her bachelor’s from Birmingham-Southern College and received master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, N.C. and NIU.

Steve Franklin, former co-worker of Bates at the NIU Press, said in a press release, “I knew (Bates) as a friend and as a colleague. She was an unfailingly warm and generous person, and certainly that is the way I will always remember her.”

The memorial service will be held at 3 p.m., with opening remarks by NIU philosophy professor Sherman Stanage.