A few days after longtime Oak Park resident Faith Julian first met Anthony Thomas, she told her mother “I think I met someone who’s going to be my friend the rest of my life.”
That was in 1981. Nearly a half century later, Julian left Thomas a message on his birthday telling him about that exchange, he fondly recalled. The two friends talked every day for 44 years after meeting at the Blind Service Association, where Julian was a volunteer reader and Thomas was a client as he’s completely blind, he said.
Among family, friends and community members, Julian made an impression as someone who was always willing to give and be in service to people.
Faith Roselle Julian, a 75-year resident of Oak Park, died March 26 at the age of 82.
Born to Dr. Percy Lavon Julian, known for his contributions in chemistry, and Dr. Anna Johnson Julian, the first African American woman awarded a PhD in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the two moved to Oak Park in 1950 with Faith and her brother Percy Julian Jr.
They were not welcomed by other residents.
As the only Black residents in the neighborhood, they were met with violence. Their home was a target of arson. In another instance, when Faith was 7 years old, someone threw a bomb that landed and exploded below her bedroom window. The Julians continued to receive threatening letters for years after, but other Oak Park residents stood behind them, according to a 2021 Tribune story about Faith Julian’s father.
In another incident, the Julian home, at 515 N. East Avenue in Oak Park, had a fire bomb thrown at it, on Nov. 22, 1950, according to a contemporary Tribune story. Arsonists broke in, gasoline was splashed on the walls and floors of its 15 rooms. Failing to light the gasoline with a long gauze fuse, the vandals tossed a kerosene torch through a porch window, the story stated. A neighbor heard the crash of glass and looked in time to see two men driving away in a small dark sedan, the Tribune reported.
Firefighters saved the house. James Taglia, a neighbor of the Julians and an Oak Park village trustee, said the family home came to represent their strength.
“The house was very important to the Julian family because it was a symbol of what they overcame, and what they had to overcome to live in the community back in the 1950s,” Taglia said. “It was a different time and they weren’t going to be bullied.”
Faith Julian attended Oak Park River Forest High School and graduated from Roosevelt University with a degree in psychology in 1973.
She was known in her community for being selfless and volunteering. She worked in the 1960s at Court Services in Chicago. She later taught English as a second language to Spanish speakers, a job she had to leave to take care of her father who became sick with terminal cancer prior to his death in 1975. She later took care of her mother, who died in 1994.
Taglia said he and Julian were good friends and would help each other out. She was always optimistic, he said.
“If you listened to her, the few words she said, she said she just knew things would ultimately get better and that we would be in a better place,” he said.
Julian wanted people to know about her family history and their experience with integration. Making sure people understood their contributions to Oak Park was important for her, her niece Katherine Julian said.
Katherine Julian said her aunt’s passion for others was always at the forefront.
“Ever since I was young, she would be somebody that was always thinking about someone else and how she could improve things for somebody else,” Katherine Julian said.
Longtime friend Thomas named several instances where Faith Julian was helping others, he said. He recalled a time where she told him about a family member who was battling drug addiction and she paid to put them in a rehab program.
Their conversations were part of his routine for the last 44 years, Thomas said, and they did a lot together, and she’d always think of him, even in her last few moments alive.
During her last hospital stay, Thomas said, Julian asked a visitor if they would be willing to help him with clothes shopping.
“She was dying, and she was still thinking about me,” Thomas said.
A visitation service was planned for April 6 at the Peterson-Bassi Chapels, 6938 W. North Ave. in Chicago, with a burial service to follow the next day.
