Janet Wallace Ullmann, 96, a former teacher and civil rights activist who corresponded with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday, Sept. 3, in Lake Forest.
Mrs. Ullmann and her husband, Stuart, joined the civil rights movement at its start, marching in Washington and meeting with many South African leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1960s, her son Thomas said.
“She consistently sought and found a common thread in human needs around the world,” he said.
Born to Presbyterian missionary parents in Saltillo, Mexico, Mrs. Ullmann lived until she was 8 in her parents’ mission school in Coyoacan, near Mexico City. As the Mexican Revolution raged on, she moved with her mother and siblings in 1913 to Palo Alto, Calif.
Mrs. Ullmann attended Stanford University and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1927, after which she studied in Paris and then taught Spanish and French in Lake Forest and in California. In 1931, she married her husband in Chicago, moving in 1937 to Lake Bluff.
Mrs. Ullmann went to Europe twice with her family in the 1950s. And she later traveled to Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa with her husband, who died in 1969.
Although her social conscience was an inspiration to her family, Mrs. Ullmann avoided being overly direct in her approach, her son said. “She abhorred preaching,” he said. “She truly taught by example.”
At 86, Mrs. Ullmann went to Nicaragua and participated in a blockade of U.S. weapons.
Mrs. Ullmann was a past president of the League of Women Voters of Lake Bluff-Lake Forest and taught in the Waukegan Head Start program. She also was a longtime member of The Lake Forest Meeting, a Quaker organization.
Other survivors include a daughter, Mary Kruse; two other sons, Laurence and Stuart; 12 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at The Lake Forest Meeting at Old Elm and Ridge Roads, a block west of Skokie Highway, between Illinois Highway 22 and Westleigh Road.
