Lenora Letcher baked the communion bread at her church, the black congregation of Mount Zion Baptist.
She fed members of Beta Sigma Psi at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, nearly all of them young white men.
She prayed for a Nazi when he sent her death threats and terrorized the city’s African-American community.
From the time Letcher arrived in Lincoln in 1944, she knocked on doors and registered voters. She led the NAACP and served the Malone Community Center, counseled mayors and governors, served the Human Rights Commission and Lincoln Action Program, nurtured her grandchildren and an extended family, who called her Mom Letcher, a sign of their abiding respect.
“Her goal was always to make life better for people across the board,†her son Paul Letcher said. “And for people to see more than just color.â€
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His mother had lived in Kansas City until her first husband died, leaving her alone with two young daughters. Her sister lived in Lincoln, so Lenora packed up her girls and moved. She married Robert Letcher and they had Paul.
She found work as a cook, and for 43 years fed fraternity brothers who would name a scholarship in her honor at her retirement.
Paul Letcher remembers the Beta Sigma Psi men he met at the university — college students whose fathers and grandfathers had also been fed by his mother. They called her another name: Lenora Legend.
“Prejudice is nothing more than ignorance,†the cook told a newspaper reporter in 1989, on the eve of her retirement.
“Letcher said she is the first black person that many if not most of the fraternity members have ever seen,†the story said. “Some have written her letters after graduation, saying how glad they were to have that experience.â€
Rod Krogh is one of those men. Letcher was more than a great cook, said the 1989 UNL graduate. “She was appreciated beyond words by everyone there. It was a tremendous blessing to know her.â€
She changed people with love, her daughter, Willene Miller, said in 2002. “She wanted everybody to understand that it’s about love. That if you love and respect yourself, you’ll do that for others, too.â€
Laws are necessary, Letcher told a reporter in 1993. “But love is necessary, too, and you can’t legislate love.â€
So she loved.
The 2012 book “Not by the Sword†recounted her role in the transformation of a Lincoln man and Ku Klux Klan grand wizard: Lenore Letcher, an African-American woman who had been on the receiving end of Larry Trapp’s hatred, prayed, ‘Dear God, let him find you in his heart.’ And that night, the skin on Trapp’s fingers burned and itched and stung so badly he had to take his Nazi rings off.
Trapp was eventually taken in by a local Jewish couple, Cantor Michael and Julie Weisser.
“She was part of the process of his change,†Paul Letcher said. “She had a chance to meet him and talk to him about her faith.â€
A faith that was central to her life.
A photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hung on her living room wall, always.
And like King, she spoke truth.
When the police officers who beat Rodney King in Los Angeles were found not guilty in 1992, she had something to say: “It just proves that there is still a lot of racism in this country. When a (minority person) gets in trouble with the law, there’s an overreaction from the authorities … because of biased discrimination. It happens here, too, in Lincoln, Nebraska.â€
She made peace.
She was an old woman when she stood in the Capitol Rotunda in 1993 to honor MLK on his birthday, taking the hand of the white woman standing to her left and the white man standing to her right to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,†the black national anthem, her voice clear and sweet.
She died a few years later, at the age of 83, a grandmother and great-grandmother.
A woman with a beautiful voice who traveled the state entertaining congregations with classical and gospel music. A soprano with a favorite hymn: “How Great Thou Art.†A crooner who backed up jazz groups when she lived in Kansas City.
An actress who stood on the Lincoln Community Playhouse stage, a lone black face in a sea of white.
A civil-rights leader honored by the NAACP with the Lenora Letcher Community Service Award.
A woman of faith, her son said, who considered her work to improve the lives of others her civil and godly duty.
“She instilled in me a deep sense of pride as a black woman,†said granddaughter Roslen Ross. “A love of people, fairness and to see past the color of skin.â€
Paul Letcher’s daughters — Kiara Bullerman and Kaleah Latenser — were little girls when their grandmother died. Many of their memories spring from family stories.
But their grandmother's gift to the larger world is apparent when they say their family name — Letcher — in Lincoln.
“People talked about her with such wonder,†Bullerman said. “Her mark and her legacy have left such an impact on my life.â€
Her younger sister feels the ripples, too.
“I plan to raise my daughter the same way my grandmother raised my father,†Latenser said. “And the same way my father raised my sister and me.â€