Betty Kullman Mellor, psychiatric social worker, program director, teacher, and social activist, has died at 97
As former director of social services for the Centennial School District, she developed programs that benefitted the most vulnerable students. "She was an inspiration to all," a colleague said.
Betty Kullman Mellor, 97, of Hatboro, longtime psychiatric social worker and former director of social services for the Centennial School District, teacher and mentor to students from elementary school through grad school, social activist, and adventurer, died Wednesday, March 1, of failure to thrive at her home.
Drawn to educational and social welfare issues throughout her life, Mrs. Mellor worked in the Special Services Department for Centennial schools for nearly 30 years. Beginning in 1964 until her retirement in 1992, she connected students and families in Ivyland, Upper Southampton Township, and Warminster Township with teachers, school officials, counselors, and consultants of all kinds to confront problems of all sorts.
She funded and developed child care programs and alternate classes for teen parents, evaluated supplemental curricula, and directed the school district’s Head Start program that supported young children. “She could make whatever she was working on come out better, faster, on time, and under budget no matter what it was,” said her daughter Kris Soffa. “She was the original liberated woman and a trailblazer.”
Mrs. Mellor coauthored Field Instruction in a Public School in 1994 and other research papers on school social work. In 1981, she won an achievement award from the Centennial School District. In 1990, she earned a Pennsylvania school social worker award.
In an online tribute, a former colleague called her “the most professional and compassionate social worker imaginable. ... I, as a school psychologist, marveled at her warmth and honesty with the parents she dealt with.”
As a teacher, Mrs. Mellor instructed elementary school students in Ohio, junior psychiatry students at the University of Minnesota hospital, and undergraduates at Bucks County Community College. In the field, she mentored social work students from Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University.
“She had a huge amount of creative energy and focus,” her daughter said. “She was ambitious and efficient. She could get it done.”
After she retired, Mrs. Mellor joined the board and became action director for the League of Women Voters of Bucks County. She championed educational and social opportunities for girls and women, and helped create the Hunger Nutrition Coalition of Bucks County.
She and her husband, John, were founding members of the Bux-Mont Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship and helped families integrate Hatboro in the 1960s. Starting in 1943, she volunteered and voted in elections for 78 straight years.
Away from work, she and her husband, a longtime sailor, constantly sought adventure and navigated their 22-foot sailboat on memorable voyages to Florida, Canada, and ports in between. They visited Yellowstone National Park on their honeymoon and later followed the trail of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
They also toured the country by car, and there wasn’t a historical marker along the side of any road at which they did not stop and read to their children. “She had a GPS in her brain,” her daughter said.
Betty Joyce Kullman was born Sept. 6, 1925, in Glens Falls, N.Y. She disliked her first name, so she often went by Kullie as she grew older.
She earned a scholarship and bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1947 and a master’s degree in psychiatric social work at the University of Minnesota in 1951.
She met fellow student John Mellor at Oberlin, and they married in 1947 and lived in Ohio, Minnesota, and New York before moving to Hatboro in 1961. They had daughters Kris, Mary Beth, and Martha, and son John. Her husband died in 2007.
Mrs. Mellor often read several books in a week and belonged to half a dozen book clubs. She liked to write letters, nurtured an organic garden, and cooked exotic dishes for her family.
She enjoyed opera and museums, donated homemade masks during the pandemic, and taught her daughters to knit and bake homemade pies. “Those skills have brought me a sense of calm and connection not only to her but to the people of the world who create things for others,” said her daughter Martha Mellor Bryson.
She and her husband spent many hours on local waterways and were members of the Mohawk Canoe Club and Pennsylvania Yacht Club. She doted on her grandchildren and wrote in a short autobiography that living near them and sharing their lives was “a true blessing.”
A niece, Emily Mellor Caruth, said: “Aunt Kullie was really all about love. It was her secret ingredient, and she added heaping portions of it to everything she did.”
In addition to her children, grandchildren, and niece, Mrs. Mellor is survived by two great-grandchildren and other relatives.
A streaming celebration of her life is to be at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 8, at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, 6511 Lincoln Dr., Philadelphia, Pa. 19119.
Donations in her name may be made to the American Civil Liberties Union, 125 Broad St., 18th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10004.