Betty Homdrom was a Lutheran missionary who marched against apartheid and police tactics in South Africa, where she and her husband served for 35 years.
"They were missionaries at heart," said George Latimer, who as then-mayor of St. Paul worked with the couple after they retired in St. Paul in 1985. "There's just a very special, small group of people in the world who look not to themselves at all, but are captured by an ideal; in her case it was social justice."
Homdrom, 83, died of Alzheimer's disease and a broken hip May 20 in St. Paul.
The couple worked with Latimer and the City Council to have St. Paul adopt Lawaaikamp as a sister city. It was then a makeshift black town that refused the South African government's edict in 1988 to move or be leveled. "I learned a lot about the barbarism of apartheid," Latimer said. He recalled the day in 1988 when the Homdroms came to his City Hall office.
"They were sitting in my office and we set up a transcontinental phone call" to the Lawaaikamp leader, who had a striking English accent, Latimer said. "We were talking back and forth on the phone and agreed to be sister cities. It was consummated in the air."
Because of international pressure, the government didn't level the city. Apartheid crumbled in 1994 after free elections were held and the country's constitution was rewritten. Nelson Mandela was elected as South Africa's first black president.
"It was one of the most extraordinary bloodless revolutions," Latimer said. The Homdroms "started [in 1950] when everybody thought it would never change. She had faith that you could change it if you worked at it, and she and Ted did. ... It makes you kind of believe in Lutherans."
The couple raised three children during more than three decades in South Africa. Betty Homdrom taught at a Lutheran seminary and was editor of a newspaper that served more than 1,000 black churches in the newly formed body called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa, said Ted Homdrom, 91.
He recalled marching with his wife in 1983, as whites heckled protesters. She was up front carrying a sign denouncing police for killing 17 blacks who had protested apartheid in the former Transkei Homeland. Another time police raided their office in Johannesburg and confiscated his records as treasurer of the church, he said.
Homdrom said they became friends with Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, then leader of the South African Council of Churches. They saw him shortly after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. Tutu hugged Betty, and she joked that his Nobel winner's hug would be one of the highlights of her life, Homdrom said.
Life with his wife was never humdrum, said Homdrom.
In addition to her husband, Homdrom is survived by two sons, Steve Hutchinson, of Madison, Wis.; and Paul Homdrom of Richmond, Ind.; one daughter, Ev Hanson-Florin, of Sidlesham, England; a sister, Ellen Erickson, of Blaine, and six grandchildren. Services have been held.
Jim Adams • 612-673-7658
