William Elijah Dance " Bill "'s Obituary
William Elijah Dance (“Bill”), age 92, of Dallas, Texas went to be with Jesus on April 5, 2023. He was born on September 30, 1930, in Montezuma, New Mexico. He spent most of his childhood in rural Eastern Kentucky in various communities. He spent his high school years in Pineville, Kentucky, where he was known for being very dependable in the operation of his sizable newspaper delivery route. He was the valedictorian of his high school.
He always had a keen interest in science and how things worked, so he went off to Carson Newman College where he majored in Physics and was valedictorian there again. He met the love of his life there, Bettye Hennessee, whom he married in 1955. He spent six more years in graduate school at Louisiana State University, earning a Masters and a PhD in Physics.
Bill and Bettye then moved to Dallas in 1958, where he worked as a nuclear physicist for a large multinational defense company. He focused on research and development for the first part of his career. The second half of his career was focused on the development of an invention they called the N-Ray, which was able to see into aircraft structures to detect corrosion or structural defects. He had several international partners on this venture and enjoyed traveling all over the world on this project. He was listed as the inventor on several patents for this.
Bill and Bettye were married for 56 years and lived in the same house in Dallas for over 50 of those years. Bill was very active in leading the broad neighborhood association (the Northwest Dallas Improvement League) which was one of the largest and most active in all of Dallas. He was also a longtime member at Prestonwood Baptist Church. He was a devoted husband, father and “Grampers”.
He is preceded in death by his parents, Reverend and Mrs. James Claude Dance, his brothers James Lee Dance and Thomas Riley Dance, his sister, Thelma Dance Ward, and his beloved wife, Elizabeth Hennessee Dance. He is survived by his sons, James Christopher Dance (Robin) and William Alton Dance, and his three grandsons, Ian Christopher Dance (Hannah), Shayler Lee Dance and Kelly James Dance.
A memorial service will be held at the Wildwood Chapel at Restland Funeral Home in Dallas, Tx at 2:30 pm on Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Viewing at 2:00 at chapel before service.
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