BIOGRAPHY OF KAY MEYERS

Kay Meyers, lifelong humanitarian activist and longtime resident of Hyde Park and South Shore, died Monday, January 21, at the Seasons Hospice of Chicago, Weiss Memorial Hospital unit.  The cause of death was heart failure, complicated by pneumonia.  Kay was 97, two months shy of her 98th birthday.

Kay was born March 25, 1915, on a farm in Somers, Kenosha County, Wisconsin.  Her father, Frank Meyers was employed as a flagman by the CNW railroad.  Her mother, Elizabeth Olk Meyers, was a home keeper, and managed the family farm, and a rooming house.

Memorial Service for Kay Meyers

Sunday, February 10th at 2:00 PM

Lincoln Restaurant

4008 N. Lincoln Ave

Chicago, IL   MAP

Food / Drink Purchase

Requested by Restaurant

Info: Brad Lyttle (773) 324-0654

blyttle@igc.org

MEMORIAL SERVICE PROGRAM

 

Opening remarks by Brahm Bassford, MC

Song:  UNION MAID

 

Tributes by:

Jim Meyers, Kay’s nephew (a more detailed biography is available from him)

Jane Meyers, Kay’s grand niece

Andrea Brisben, Socialist Party USA

Alma Windgart, AFSCME, Council 31, Subchapter 60                

Charles Paidock, College of Complexes

Bradford Lyttle, Committee for Nonviolent Action

 

Open mike

Closing songs:  SOLIDARITY FOREVER

WE SHALL OVERCOME

Reception: In the Lincoln Restaurant. Order from the menu.  

Kay was a graduate of a Catholic elementary school, and the public Kenosha High School.  She completed two years at the University of Wisconsin extension in Kenosha, and at the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin.  Later, she studied typing, shorthand, and journalism at a Kenosha vocational school.

Kay joined the Socialist Party of Wisconsin in 1938, and as a democratic socialist, participated in many labor education programs, peace activities, and civil rights demonstrations (where she was arrested several times for nonviolent civil disobedience).  In 1968, she was nominated the Socialist candidate for mayor of Chicago.

Kay was an AFSCME organizer, and did volunteer work with the American Friends Service Committee, the Congress on Racial Equality, the War Resisters League, the Committee for Nonviolent Action, and the United States Pacifist Party.  To support herself, she worked for

the Illinois Commission on Delinquency Prevention, and as a stenographer, bookkeeper, news reporter, statistical typist, legal stenotypist, and renovator of rundown buildings, which she rented with an eye to helping the poor.

In the early 60s and 70s, Kay worked for 14 years in the peace movement on the East Coast.

Although she worked as a volunteer for many faith-based groups, she considered herself an agnostic.

Kay was married twice, to Fred Fields and then Larry Simons, both deceased.  There were no children from these unions.  She is survived by her nephew, James K. Meyers and  grand niece Jane Meyers, both of Kenosha, and many cousins.