In Memoriam: Joan Aldous, 1926-2014

Joan Aldous, the William R. Kenan Kr. Professor of Sociology emerita at the University of Notre Dame, died on October 29 at the Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation Center in South Bend, Indiana. She was 88 years old.

Dr. Aldous was a native of Washington, D.C. Her father died when she was 12 and her mother took a job teaching home economics at Kansas State University. Aldous graduated from Kansas State in 1948 and a year later earned a master’s degree at the University of Texas. In 1963, Dr. Aldous earned a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Minnesota.

Professor Aldous taught at the University of Minnesota from 1963 to 1974. She then taught briefly at Tulane University in New Orleans and the University of Georgia before joining the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 1976. Professor Aldous was the author or editor of several books including Family Careers: Rethinking the Developmental Perspective (Sage, 1996)

Dr. Aldous retired from teaching in 2012 at the age of 86.