Jan Kay, stalwart west suburban volunteer, dies

Chicago Tribune

15-07-2025

Jan Kay led Wheaton's League of Women Voters chapter and focused other volunteer efforts on helping the homeless and disadvantaged, serving for more than two decades on the western suburb's Housing Commission and Commission on Aging.
'Jan had a gift for reaching out to others, especially those who were disenfranchised or on the margins, to make sure they knew she saw them and could be a friend (and) an ally,' said Kim Hesterman Reed, a friend and member of the League of Women Voters of Glen Ellyn.
Kay, 89, died of natural causes on June 10 while in hospice care at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, said her son, Bob. She had been a longtime Wheaton resident.
Born Janice Lucille Cave in Waverly, Iowa, Kay received a bachelor's degree in music from Wartburg College in Waverly in 1959. While at Wartburg, Kay met her future husband, Thomas O. Kay. The couple married in 1959 and moved to Wheaton, where her husband taught history at Wheaton College for 45 years. He died in 2022.
For many years, Kay taught piano in her home, and she also played the piano at her church and accompanied the chorus at Hawthorne Elementary School in Wheaton, where her children went, her son said. Kay also served on Wheaton's United Way board.
In Kay's later years, she became deeply involved in her community. She was president of Wheaton's League of Women Voters chapter from 1993 until 1995 and again from 2005 until 2009 and earlier, she had served as the group's action chair. And she served on the board of the city's Housing Commission — now known as its Commission on Aging — from 1997 until her death.
'She was a very strong advocate for our community,' Wheaton Mayor Philip Suess said in June at a City Council meeting. 'You think of her community involvement over the years that she's lived in Wheaton, she and her husband, Tom, were great advocates for the community, and (they were involved) … through their church, through Wheaton College and through the League of Women Voters.'
Colleagues recalled Kay's interest in people on welfare and those experiencing homelessness. Starting in the 1990s, Kay was involved with a Chicago-based women's group called Creating Bridges, which held simulations aimed at helping middle-class suburbanites better understand the frustrating, entangling webs of welfare agencies.
'I've gotten to know women who have had to be in the (welfare) system for some time,' Kay told the Tribune in 1991. 'I hope I'm a help to them … as a friend.'
That same commitment to assisting those in need spurred Kay to become part of the Continuum of Care, a DuPage County-led agency that is a planning body that works with a variety of agencies to provide strategies at ending and preventing homelessness. Kay served on the DuPage Continuum of Cares Gaps and Needs Committee for more than three decades until her death.
The Gaps and Needs Committee identifies the gaps in services and the needs of the Continuum of Care in serving vulnerable populations, including analyzing local data and providing evidence to further address and support such needs within the community.
'What made Jan Kay so special is that she was such a powerful advocate and such a compassionate champion for so many people and so many causes,' said Lisa Snipes, the DuPage Continuum of Care's continuum planner. 'She was a people person, and the work she did with the Continuum of Care was centered around individuals experiencing homelessness.'
Snipes recalled that whenever Kay would encounter someone who was homeless, 'she would have so much compassion and kindness for people who were vulnerable and who found themselves in unfortunate circumstances that she would engage them in conversation and buy them a sandwich and sit down and listen. That was so comforting. She practiced what she preached.'
Kay also was very active in the DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform, a nonprofit collaboration of government and community groups that works to marshal local resources to address human services needs. With her knowledge of elected officials and legislation through her work with the League of Women Voters, Kay led a committee for advocacy at the DuPage Federation. She had been involved with that group since its inception in 1995.
'She was generous with her time to help the federation do its best job for advocacy,' said David Roth, the group's executive director. 'Jan excelled at supporting people, and she is one who fervently believed that if we worked together, we can get this done. And she did it with a graciousness and a passion that was unsurpassed.'
Early this year, Wheaton honored Kay with the city's volunteer Excellence Award.
In addition to her son, Kay is survived by a daughter, Catherine; another son, John; two sisters, Virginia Ruzicka and Rebecca Radel; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Services were held.