Ivan Innerst

INNERST, IVAN New Mexico writer Ivan Innerst was born on April 15, 1923 in Canton, China, the son of American missionary parents. He was reared in Westerville, Ohio, and attended both Westerville High School and Otterbein College. In 1943, he married Betty Cook of Dayton, Ohio, and in September of that year was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. After training in Texas and Missouri, he was assigned to the Army Medical Corps and sent to the European Theater of Operations in September of 1943. He served with the 102nd Infantry Division as a medical corpsman in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, through the Battle of the Bulge, winning the combat medic’s badge and several battle stars. Following the end of hostilities in Europe, he studied for several months at the Sorbonne in Paris. Honorably discharged in January, 1946, Innerst enrolled in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern and received a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in 1947. He then moved with his family to California, where over the following years he served on the editorial staffs of several newspapers, including the Hollywood Citizen - News, the Riverside Enterprise, the Los Angeles Times and the Watsonville Register – Parajonian. In 1952, he received a Master of Science in Journalism degree from UCLA, and he taught Journalism the following year at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. From 1953 to 1962 he served on the faculty of the Graduate Department of Journalism at UCLA, teaching courses principally in news and feature writing and one Great Books course, Ideas That Changed History. Through the 1960’s, Innerst served on the editorial staffs of two daily newspapers in southeastern Pennsylvania and taught English courses on the York campus of the Pennsylvania State University. He and his family moved to New Mexico in 1969. From 1980 to 1992 he taught newswriting courses as a member of the faculty of the University of New Mexico Journalism Department. His published fiction included a novella which appeared in a hard-cover anthology, New Voices 2: American Writing Today, and short stories in the literary quarterlies Southwest Review and Stories. One from Southwest Review was listed as “distinguished fiction” in Best American Stories of 1961. A convert to Catholicism, he was author of the book Saints for Today: Reflections on Lesser Saints, published by Ignatius Press of San Francisco, in 2000. A series of portrait – stories of twelve Catholic saints. He is survived by his children, Ivan C. Innerst, and wife, Lynn, Sue Puchaty and husband, Don, Wendy Nevin, Stacy Innerst, Sean Innerst and wife, Cathy; siblings, Lucille Nordgren and Richard Innerst; 11 grandchildren; and 2 great grandchildren. A Memorial Rosary will be held on Tuesday, December 30, 2014 at 10:00 a.m., at Our Lady of Fatima, 4020 Lomas Blvd. NE, 87110, followed directly by the Funeral Mass. Burial will take place at Mt. Calvary Cemetery after the mass.

Ivan Innerst

April 15, 1923 - December 18, 2014