Always on the front lines: Oak Trace resident’s lifelong fight for justice
For more than half a century, Nancy Carlson has been leading the charge where change is happening. Whether marching for civil rights in the 1960s, promoting women’s rights in the 1970s, pushing for protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 1980s, or advocating for LGBTQ+ youth in the decades that followed, Nancy has never been content to sit on the sidelines.
Over the years, Nancy has often been asked a familiar question. People want to know if her advocacy is personal, whether a family member struggled with identity, discrimination, or one of the many causes she has championed. The answer is no. Her work has always been guided by principle, not proximity or personal circumstance.
Leadership by design
The instinct to pave the way for change showed up early in her life. While attending Augustana College, Nancy looked at the existing sororities and felt something was missing. More than social connection; she wanted an organization rooted in leadership and scholarship. Along with a small group of friends, she helped create Delta Chi Theta, intentionally shaping a community known for academic excellence and leadership. The bonds formed there were built on shared values and endured.
Learning how systems shape lives
After college, Nancy accepted a role at the YWCA in El Paso, overseeing programs serving 6,800 teenage girls. This experience taught Nancy how commitment truly works. With limited funding yet enormous need, she learned firsthand how trust, dedication, and structure could change the trajectory of young lives.
Finding her voice in the classroom
The classroom is where Nancy learned that challenging systems and cultures from the inside could help drive change. As a grade school teacher, advocacy became part of her daily work. She strengthened relationships between teachers and the PTA, recruited parent volunteers into classrooms, helped launch a student council, giving students an early voice in their school experience, and served on the first negotiating team to secure teachers’ contracts. These were early expressions of her commitment to collaboration, advocacy, and fairness.
After the birth of her twin sons, Nancy stepped away from teaching, a pivotal moment that would later shape the next chapter of her work and service.
Answering her calling
That same instinct drew her in a new capacity to the YWCA, where the need was clear, and the work demanded steady leadership. Over 16 years, Nancy built and led programs designed to protect and empower women, including the creation of a rape crisis center and the facilitation of support groups.
Immersed in that work, Nancy realized she had found her calling and returned to school to earn her degree in social work, formalizing the advocacy she had long practiced through experience and leadership.
When systems are stressed
As her experience deepened, Nancy was drawn into complex welfare issues. For two years, she worked within a program identifying treatment and safe housing for sexually abused and aggressive wards of the State. The work reinforced how fragile protective systems can be and how essential it is that informed, accountable leaders remain fully present.
From front lines to policy tables
Nancy later served as a policy advisor to Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan and then went on to manage a program for individuals with serious chronic mental illness through the DuPage County Health Department.
Through the years, the settings changed, but Nancy’s purpose remained consistent: strengthening systems that serve those with the least protection.
Retirement? Not quite
When Nancy retired, she was far from finished. Instead of stepping away from advocacy, she reflected. “I thought of all the minority groups I’d worked with, all the people who faced challenges,” she said. “The group that needs the most now is the LGBTQ+ community. They’re the most misunderstood and misunderstanding causes real harm.”
That realization led her to Youth Outlook, Illinois’ first nonprofit dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth. There, she volunteered by helping lead support groups and educational initiatives for young people and families navigating identity, acceptance, and visibility. In recognition of her impact, she received the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Curiosity as compassion
At the heart of Nancy’s work is curiosity, compassion, and courage. “I like new ideas,” she said. “I want to understand individuals who are different. I always tell people, ‘say more about that’.” For her, listening has always been an act of leadership.
A new chapter, same purpose
That approach continues at Oak Trace senior living community where Nancy moved in February 2025 as one of the first residents of the new building at the senior living community. After more than 50 years in the Downers Grove and the loss of her husband of 52 years, she was ready for a new chapter.
True to form, she brought her mission with her. Nancy coordinated some educational programming at Oak Trace, including a screening of the documentary The Gender Revolution, creating space for thoughtful dialogue and shared understanding. The conversations echo the same principles she first practiced decades earlier, listening, learning, and making room for every voice.
Still on the front lines
From classrooms to crisis centers, policy tables to senior living, Nancy Carlson has built a life defined by advocacy and care. And even now, she remains exactly where she has always been.
On the front lines.
Oak Trace Senior Living
Oak Trace senior living community in Downers Grove, Illinois, is set on more than 40 acres of meticulously landscaped grounds featuring gardens, walking paths, ponds and abundant green space. As a Life Plan Community, formerly known as a CCRC, Oak Trace offers a full continuum of care: including independent living, assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation and skilled nursing. Oak Trace is owned by Lifespace, a not-for-profit organization with nearly 50 years of experience in senior living. To learn more about Oak Trace, visit OakTraceSeniorLiving.com.