Kathryn Munnell was born on April 26, 1944 to Edyth Abraham Munnell and Clyde Munnell II in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She grew up there near both sets of grandparents and many aunts, uncles and cousins, relationships she valued throughout her life. She attended public schools in McKeesport and then William and Mary College in Virginia, where she majored in English. 

Immediately after graduating in 1966, Kathryn joined the Peace Corps and served in St. Kitts, the West Indies, where she worked to establish cooperatives and in youth development. Her Peace Corps service heralded a lifelong interest in people here and abroad who had less in the way of material goods and opportunities than many Americans but no shortage of talent or grit. 

After the Peace Corps, Kathryn returned to New York City, finding a job with the City’s Youth Services Agency and a miniscule apartment on Cornelia Street. When fellow Peace Corps alumna Judy Long needed a place to stay, Kathryn offered to share hers, an early example of the generosity—both material and emotional–that characterized Kathryn’s relationships in all phases of her life. Along with her commitment to serving dispossessed communities evidenced by much of her life’s work, Kathryn never lost sight of the personal. With her exquisite attention to others, she made long-lasting friends wherever she went.

In 1970 Kathryn moved to Baltimore, where she taught English in the Baltimore City school system–two years at Frederick Douglass High School and four years at Patterson High School. At Douglass, she organized and coached students for the annual declamation contest. In her career as a schoolteacher, Kathryn often found ways to befriend students as well as teach them, sometimes going to significant lengths to help them through difficult times.

During this period Kathryn began attending Homewood Friends Meeting. She recalled that the first time she arrived at Homewood, an hour early, she was immediately swept into the lively adult discussion group that met before worship. Dorothy and Will Samuel of the meeting, who had been active in the Civil Rights Movement, became friends and mentors. Kathryn became a member of Homewood Meeting in the early 1970s and later worshiped at Ann Arbor, Atlanta and Brooklyn Friends meetings as her work took her to different parts of the country.

Kathryn earned a master’s degree in English at Morgan State University in 1977 and worked there for a year as an adjunct professor. Later in that year, thanks to Friends United Meeting contacts and with a travel minute from Homewood Friends, Kathryn departed for a teaching job at Lirhembe Girls Secondary School in Kakamega County, Kenya. She soon found herself the head of school as well. It was a difficult two years, and Kathryn often regretted that in the chaotic conditions of the school, she had not been able to do better for more of her students. 

Returning to the United States, she took some time at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center before landing a job in Jackson, Michigan. She taught English and communication at Jackson Community College, where her father had spearheaded an expansion to the campus. She was laid off in 1982, but stayed in Michigan to complete a master’s degree in communications at Michigan State University, working in the Office of Women in Development and teaching a mass introductory communications course to undergraduates. 

For two years beginning in 1984, Kathryn again worked overseas, this time at the Phanat Nikhom Refugee Camp in Thailand, where she helped design and oversaw the teaching of courses for Indochinese refugees preparing for resettlement in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

In 1987 she became the director of international operations for Habitat for Humanity International and in 1990 executive director of Alternatives, an ecumenical publishing house and resource center. One specialty of Alternatives was helping Christians find ways to celebrate Christmas that were not centered around the accumulation of things.

Kathryn returned overseas in 1993, working for World Vision in the northern section of Vietnam. She managed development projects in education, job creation and health, and directed training for staff. In Vietnam and later in the island nation of Vanuatu, she willingly undertook the hardship of travel to remote villages, laughing good-humoredly at every challenge. She particularly loved working with her Vietnamese colleagues and took pains to encourage their growth in skills and experience. Years later she still treasured all she learned from them.

In 1999 Kathryn moved back to the United States, this time to Brooklyn, New York, first teaching at Abraham Lincoln High School and then for more than 10 years at the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology. For some of those years, she played a key role in a program to better shepherd students through their second year of high school. Kathryn brought her own brand of truthful compassion to her relationships with students, many of whom were children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Her vibrant presence graced the ticketing booth of many school theatrical performances.

After retiring from the New York City schools, she traveled to South Korea as a volunteer, spending six months developing and teaching an English as a Second Language curriculum for the Cheroen Peace Center. Her final stint of international work was for World Vision Australia/New Zealand in Vanuatu, where she was the area-project manager in 2012 and 2013.

She returned to the United States and Pendle Hill, grounding herself at the Quaker center after a discouraging time overseas. One valued adviser at Pendle Hill, no doubt recognizing Kathryn’s ability to build and benefit from community, suggested that in choosing a place to live, she find a vital Quaker meeting. She settled in Baltimore in 2014, becoming again an active member of Homewood Friends.  She served first on the Peace and Social Justice Committee and was a dedicated court watcher in a project directed at reforming the bail system. For several years she was a member of the Ministry and Counsel Committee, continuing with her contributions, despite the rigors of her treatment for ovarian cancer, almost until her death. She laughed about her fondness for greeting cards, but took seriously the ministry she carried out through them, encouraging many in the meeting—and beyond, in her wide circle of friends–with her messages. 

For a year and a half after moving to Baltimore, Kathryn taught communication and speech as adjunct faculty at the Community College of Baltimore County. She also sat on the board of Baltimore’s Ten Thousand Villages store, which like its counterparts elsewhere, sells goods attained through fair trade from countries in the global south. Never forgetting the hard times that had befallen her hometown, Kathryn endowed a college scholarship fund for students at McKeesport Senior High School, enlisting friends from high school for its advisory committee.

At her apartment in a planned community, Kathryn created a welcoming home replete with paintings, photographs, sculptures, and textiles from her travels–a celebration of all the peoples she had appreciated and befriended.  She was also able to indulge her lifelong love of swimming. As a young woman, she taught swimming, and at least two happy summers were spent helping with residential camps. 

Also abiding was Kathryn’s love of world literature. During her last few years, Kathryn and a friend met regularly by phone to read the ancient Greek tragedies together, with Kathryn bringing both enthusiasm and research to the discussions. When she was finally able to travel to Greece three months before her death, she not only embraced her dear ex-sister-in-law Bella Dietschi in Athens, she paid homage to the land that had so stirred her imagination. 

In 2020 Kathryn was one of a small group of Homewood women who cared for Polly Heninger after Polly underwent major abdominal surgery. When Kathryn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer two years later, almost the identical group (with the inclusion of Polly) re-formed around Kathryn.  

It was a profound experience to be with Kathryn as she grappled with the effects of her disease and faced death. She was open about her condition but never let her own needs overwhelm her interest in the joys and sorrows of others or dampen her willingness to help them as she could. She managed a trip to New York by bus for important good-byes with friends and godchildren even as her ability to eat was waning. She returned by train with her close friend Marvin Forman a day before she died.  

Kathryn is survived by her sister Jennifer Rapaport of Los Angeles and her cousin Jenn Schreier of Tulsa, Okla. (with whose family she spent many Thanksgivings as well as memorable lake vacations, including one where the Missouri lake patrol demanded that Kathryn cease swimming in the nude). Her brother, Jonathan, predeceased her. She leaves many other valued relatives and friends, here and abroad.