Tribune science writer also enjoyed bicycling
A science writer for most of his 34 years at the Chicago Tribune, Jon Van covered a range of scientific developments in areas including medicine, meteorology, pollution, global warming, solar power and wireless communications. “He knew his stuff, and created a space in the paper that really distinguished it for its scientific coverage, which was a hallmark of the Tribune for many years,” said former Tribune Managing Editor James O’Shea, who also worked with Van at The Des Moines Register.
Van, 75, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease July 10 at the Elmwood Park home of his daughter, Lisa Pasquesi, said another daughter, Kristin VanDusseldorp. A Lakeview resident, he formerly had been a longtime resident of Oak Park. Born Jon Karl VanDusseldorp in Des Moines, Iowa, Van graduated in 1960 from North Des Moines High School, where he was a National Merit Scholar and played trombone in the school’s marching band. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1966 from the University of Iowa, where he was the editor of The Daily Iowan. He then earned a master’s degree in political science from the university in 1968.
During his college years, Van was a freelance reporter for The Des Moines Register, covering events in Iowa City. After he earned his master’s degree, the Register hired Van to cover city and county government. From the outset, he used the shorter byline of “Jon Van” rather than his full name.
“Jon was a very skilled reporter on many levels,” O’Shea said. “He covered the Des Moines City Council, and he was an ace political reporter. When I first met him, we were doing political stories together, and we did a couple investigative stories as well.”
In the fall of 1973, the Tribune hired Van as a metro reporter. Within a few years, Van began covering science, often being paired with veteran and now-retired science reporter Ronald Kotulak.
“Jon was a multitalented reporter, and he had a wide range of interests he could dig into,” said Kotulak, who retired from the Tribune in 2007. “He could take any subject and come up with a great story, whether it was from Mount Saint Helens’ volcanic eruption or the big particle accelerator in Switzerland that was exploring the tiniest of tiny particles that make up the universe. He could produce delightful accounts of these major projects.”
Typical of the kinds of articles Van wrote was a story he produced after attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in 1990. On subjects ranging from carcinogens in food to pigeons to pulsars, Van concluded, what was striking wasn’t so much what scientists already knew but the limitations of nature and science.
“Nature is not only complex, but also totally uncaring about the elegance of theories or experiments humans concoct to understand it,” Van wrote. “Good citizens, like good scientists, must remain skeptical of simple or easy answers, no matter how appealing.”
O’Shea noted that Van excelled at making complicated scientific subjects easy for newspaper readers to understand.
“He was somebody who really understood the intricacies of technology and science and could explain them in a clear and concise fashion,” O’Shea said.
Retired Tribune reporter Jerry Crimmins called Van an upbeat and always helpful colleague.
“If you had to work with him on any project or ask him for help on a subject he was an expert in, you knew he would help you and be easy to work with,” Crimmins said.
In his later years at the Tribune, Van covered technology for the business section, including subjects like wireless and broadband, nanotechnology and Illinois’ biotech community.
Van enjoyed bicycling and frequently commuted on his bike from Oak Park to his job at the Tribune Tower, no matter the weather, colleagues said.
In August 1974, Van rode with hundreds of cyclists on a 430-mile trip across his home state of Iowa, the second version of RAGBRAI, or the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. He filed eight dispatches for the Tribune during the trek, which began in Council Bluffs and concluded in Dubuque.
Van also was a member of the League of American Wheelmen, and he often biked on trips around the United States and Europe with O’Shea and others.
“We went to Ireland and France and all kinds of different places, along with Jon’s friend Moe Sullivan,” O’Shea said.
Van retired from the Tribune in March 2008.
His first marriage, to Denise O’Brien Van Dusseldorp, ended in divorce in 1998. He is survived by his second wife, Marsha; his two daughters; and three grandchildren.
A celebration of life service is being planned.