On January 20, 2017, Dale Edward Van Laningham, 87, was released to the care of the God he trusted, in the company of the family he loved. At his bedside were his wife of 57 years, Barbara Van Laningham; son John and his wife Stacy Van Laningham; daughter Amy Ballou and her husband Dan; and granddaughters Amanda
and Jacqueline Van Laningham. Dale was born in June 1929, a few months after the inauguration of Herbert Hoover, and several months before the start of the Great Depression. He grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, where his father Glenn worked as an upholsterer and candy salesman. His mother, Anne (Astley), had a long career as an administrative assistant to officials in the Iowa state government. Dale's younger brother, Glenn, arrived in 1932, and the siblings formed enduring fraternal bonds of friendship and affection. By the time Dale was a teenager, with the Second World War under way, he had met pals John Wilson and Dick Gates, with whom he remained close for the rest of his life. Dale enrolled in Drake University in 1947 and graduated
with his bachelor's degree in 1951. Soon after that, he was drafted into the Army, which was then fighting in Korea. Fortunately for Dale, instead of receiving orders to fight as an artilleryman in the Far East conflict, he
was selected for the Counter Intelligence Corps and spent the rest of his tour as a special agent in Germany, one of the fronts in the burgeoning Cold War. He was honorably discharged in 1953 and went home to Iowa. After working for five years as an underwriter, Dale returned to school for a graduate degree. While attending the University of Minnesota, he met Barbara Jean Swanson of Minneapolis, and they were married there in 1959. The couple relocated to Iowa City in 1962, where Dale completed his studies at the University of
Iowa, earning a master's in social work in 1963. While in Iowa City, Dale and Barbara's son, John Glen, was born in 1962. The family moved back to Minneapolis. There, in 1965, Barbara gave birth to the couple's daughter, Amy Jean. In 1967, Dale took a job in Rochester, Minnesota, where the family lived until 1973. That year, Dale accepted a job as a psychiatric social worker at Halifax Hospital in Daytona Beach, Florida, and he brought his family to the Sunshine State, which would be his home for the next 44 years, and in which his children and grandchildren would build their careers. Dale later transferred from the hospital to the community mental health center, then known as the Guidance Center, and later as Act Corporation, where he served as
an administrator until his retirement in 1994. In their later years, Dale and Barbara took up ballroom dancing, becoming enthusiastic and accomplished dancers, an activity that gave both of them great pleasure and a wide circle of new friends. They continued as well to enjoy the frequent company of longtime friends
Dave and Sue Baumgartel, whose presence and support at the end of Dale's life were a comfort to the family. Reflecting on his life and career, Dale wrote that it was his "privilege to walk with individuals and families
at points of stress in their lives, going into neighborhoods where angels fear to tread, breaking down closet doors of the suicidal, confronting the addict, reassuring the psychotic and restraining the homicidal." It was
our privilege to have him. "Goodnight, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." A memorial service will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 4, at the Ormond Beach Presbyterian Church, 105 Amsden Road, Ormond Beach, Florida 32174, where Dale was an elder and active member of the
congregation for more than 40 years.