Remembering Ken
(1925 – 2024)

Kenneth Edmund Southwood was born in Plymouth, England and met his wife Janet while they were studying at the University of Southampton: he in Aeronautical Engineering and she in Economics. He told us how friends set them up at a party and how much he loved being her partner and the adventures they had together. Until then a seeker, he appreciated that he had found Friends through her.

After Ken became a Quaker, he turned away from a future in aeronautics because it was connected with war and became a land surveyor for the British government in Malaya. After coming to the U.S., he and Janet attended the University of Michigan where he received a PhD in sociology and Janet an MA in social work. They moved to the University of Illinois where Ken was a professor of sociology specializing in Southeast Asian studies, the politics of violence, and statistical analysis. He had very creative ways of teaching that notoriously hard subject. After 30 years in Champaign-Urbana, they retired to San Antonio, where they joined our Quaker Meeting and helped build our current Meetinghouse. After nearly 20 years here, they moved to Minnesota to be near their daughter Jane.

Ken played many roles in our local meeting, including serving as Meeting Clerk and on nearly every Meeting committee. He edited our newsletter for many years, giving us lessons in all aspects of Quaker history. And he often gave folksy ministry, telling stories from his life in wartime England and his work in Malaysia. Each had its spiritual point but was presented lightly, drawing us in to think more deeply about who we are as people and how we choose to live.

Above all, Ken and Janet built community. They arrived at a crucial point in San Antonio Meeting’s history, when feelings about the decision-making process that led to building our Meetinghouse were still raw. Both of them saw the problem and reached out to those who felt their voices had not been heard. Ken, particularly, reached out to Friends with technical insights to include them in the design process. People appreciated his and Janet’s welcoming approach. They helped Meeting pull together and, with others, left us a beautiful Meetinghouse and a stronger Meeting than we had had when they arrive.

Janet died in 2021. Ken is survived by Jane and by sons Paul and Andrew. A daughter Rebecca is deceased

Click HERE to download the full Memorial Brochure (PDF)