Thelma KENEFICK

KENEFICK

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 10/25/2006 at 11:42:50

THELMA KENEFICK - WAS ACTIVE IN WOMEN'S SPORTS

A memorial Mass will be celebrated Saturday for Thelma M. Kenefick, a longtime women's sports leader in St. Louis. The Mass will be at 5 p.m. in the Villa Duchesne Chapel, 801 North Spoede Road in Frontenac. There will be a reception at Villa Duchesne Academy after the Mass. Miss Kenefick, who was 86, died Jan. 5, 1998, of congestive heart failure at a retirement center in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She was buried in St. Francis Cemetery in Belmond, Iowa.

Miss Kenefick was born in Eagle Grove, Iowa. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physical education from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She was the Iowa state ladies' singles tennis champion 18 times. In the 1940s and 1950s, she played on the U.S. national women's field hockey team against the national teams of England, Ireland and France. She pushed for the game's inclusion in the Olympics.
She taught physical education in Iowa before moving to St. Louis in 1936 to become director of physical education at Villa Duchesne. In her 36 years at Villa Duchesne, she developed its women's field hockey program into a national leader. She coached many players who went on to play on top national field hockey teams. Two years after her retirement, Villa Duchesne's new athletic building was dedicated as the Thelma Kenefick Activities Building.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
February 3, 1998