Ursula von Godany (99) of Ames, Iowa died on October 29, 2023, at Northcrest Community in Ames. A visitation will be held on Thursday, November 2, 2023, at Grandon Funeral and Cremation Care (414 Lincoln Way, Ames Iowa) from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. with a service to follow at 3:00 p.m. Interment will be held at Ames Municipal Cemetery. Online condolences can be made to: www.grandonfuneralandcremationcare.com


Ursula was born on February 15, 1924, in Nuremberg, Germany to Reinhold and Maria (Hitze) Bach as the oldest of three children. She was married to Ernest von Godany on May 11, 1946, and they had two children, Michael von Godanyi of Springfield, MO and Ilona Avraamides of Manchester, NH.

She had attended high school in Munich, Germany, the University of Munich, the University of Tübingen and the University of Vienna prior to immigrating to the United States in 1954. Initially, the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where she continued her education and received a master's degree in Library Science and a doctorate in German Literature from Case Western Reserve University.

Ursula worked as Assistant Head of the Foreign Literature Department of the Cleveland Public Library which at the time housed the largest foreign languages collection in any U. S. public library. Ursula and Ernest then moved to Ames in 1973 where she took a position at Iowa State University as Humanities Bibliographer and was subsequently appointed Associate Professor. She retired from this position in 1992 and continued to live in Ames.

Ursula is survived by her children Michael (Laura) von Godanyi and Ilona (Michael) Avraamides and two grandsons, Joshua Avraamides and Nicholas Avraamides. She was preceded in death by her husband in 1985, her brother, Wolf-Dieter Bach in 2002, and her sister Renate Bach in 2010.