Grace Knight, wife of Lawrence University's 11th President Douglas Knight, died Saturday, March 8 in Doylestown, Penn. She was 89 years old.
Born Grace Wallace Nichols in December, 1918, in Auburn, N.Y., Mrs. Knight earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Smith College in 1940 and graduated from the Yale University School of Nursing in 1943. It was at Yale where she met Douglas Knight, and they were married in 1942.
During her 10 years (1953-63) as Lawrence’s “First Lady,” Mrs. Knight was admired for her intelligence, wit, social grace, spontaneous friendship, and culinary skills, which she applied frequently to dinners with faculty members. Passionate about literature and current events, Mrs. Knight also was a role model for civic engagement, serving as president of the Wednesday Club (a reading club for women), treasurer of the Infant Welfare Circle of King’s Daughters, and as an active member of the League of Women Voters.
The mother of four boys, she was a strong voice in the PTA group that earned an early construction priority for the new Edison Elementary School, served on the board of a co-operative nursery school in Appleton, and taught Sunday school at the First Congregational Church for several years. Mrs. Knight also played a central role in the building and running of the Community Guidance Center of Outagamie County, recruiting her husband and all four boys to help paint the
Center’s interior.
According to family members, Mrs. Knight considered her 10-year stay in Appleton as “the happiest days of her life.”
After leaving Lawrence, she spent six years as “the Duchess of Duke,” while Douglas Knight served as president of Duke University from 1963-69. When the family relocated to New Jersey, Mrs. Knight worked part time as a psychiatric nurse at an outpatient mental health center.
She was preceded in death by her husband, who died in January, 2005. She is survived by four sons, Christopher Knight, Glencoe, Ill., Douglas Knight, Jr., Middletown, Conn., Tom Knight, Vancouver, B.C., Stephen Knight, Stockton, N.J., eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
A private family service will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at the Stockton Presbyterian Church, Stockton, N.J. Memorials in Grace’s name can be made to the Yale University School of Nursing, P.O. Box 2038, New Haven, CT 06521.