Corrine E. Kass was nationally known as a pioneering expert in the emerging field of learning disabilities, but she made her most enduring mark as a world-class aunt to her nieces and nephews whom she mentored and molded as if they were her own children. She died April 23, 2023, at the age of 96 with her intellectual acuity, spiritual assurance, and emotional positivity still intact, despite a long, slow decline in her physical health.

Corrine was born in Moline, Michigan, but moved to Detroit where she graduated from Detroit Southeastern High School. She earned her undergraduate degree from Calvin University in 1950 and her masters in special education from the University of Michigan in 1955. Both Calvin and Michigan later honored her as a Distinguished Alumna. In 1963, she graduated from the University of Illinois with a PhD in special education.

Corrine served in Washington, D.C., in the U.S. Department of Education during the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency before returning to Grand Rapids for a Calvin faculty position. She joined the University of Arizona's heralded Department of Special Education from 1968 to 1980 prior to her capstone posting at Calvin from 1980 to 1992. In addition to her teaching and lecture engagements around the globe, Corrine rose in the ranks at Calvin as Dean of Academic Administration and later as Dean of Graduate Studies. In her later years, she also was twice elected President of the Board for the Calvin Academy of Lifelong Learning. After retiring, she learned to dance, and family wedding receptions were never dull affairs once Aunt Corrine hit the dance floor. She also volunteered generously in her retirement, tutoring scores of at-risk children in a program hosted by her church. And despite fading eyesight, she maintained her lifelong habit of reading widely through books on tape, continuing her active participation in book clubs with friends and family up to her final weeks.

Corrine was preceded in death by her parents, Richard and Alice Kass, her siblings Althea and William Buursma, and Dorothy House, and her niece Sheri Buursma.

She will be remembered forever by her surviving and beloved nephews and nieces Bruce and Judy Buursma, Dirk and Harriet Buursma, Mark and Debbie Buursma, Steven and Patricia House, Julie and Mark Hoffmeyer, Karl and Anita House, and Kurt and Melodee VandenBosch, her brother in-law Don (Ruby) House, as well as many grandnieces and grandnephews.

A memorial service and celebration of Corrine's life will be held at 4 p.m. May 7 at Calvin Christian Reformed Church, 700 Ethel Ave. SE, with a reception following. The family suggests memorial gifts to the Corrine E. Kass Graduate Studies Scholarship at Calvin University.