Janet Hanneman McNulty

Janet Fern Hanneman McNulty (January 17, 1936 – June 9, 2019) was an American nurse who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Lahore, Pakistan, from 1962 to 1964.

Hanneman was born on a farm in Lincoln County, Kansas, and raised in Junction City,^[1] the daughter of Frank William Hanneman and Lydia Ellen Vonada Hanneman.^[2] She earned a bachelor's degree in nursing at the University of Kansas in 1958. She pursued further training in psychiatric nursing at Maudsley Hospital in England, and studying psychology on a Rotary Foundation fellowship in New Zealand.^[2][3]

In 1961, Hanneman was one of the first nurses to volunteer for the Peace Corps. She trained in Puerto Rico,^[4][5] studied Urdu,^[6] and was assigned to a state-run mental hospital in Lahore, where she worked from 1962 to 1964.^[7] One of the patients she worked with at the hospital was American writer Maryam Jameelah.^[8] "When I arrived in Pakistan in January 1962, a new hospital administration was taking charge," Hanneman recalled in 1964. "Now each person has a bed and bedding. Food and clothing also have improved. Sections of the hospital once locked are now unlocked."^[9] During her service in Lahore she survived three bicycle accidents and a concussion, and contracted malaria and hepatitis.^[9]

Hanneman, a photogenic, college-educated nurse from Kansas, became an exemplar of the Peace Corps ideal.^[10] She was mentioned in a Sargent Shriver speech about the Peace Corps,^[11] appeared in a Peace Corps publicity film,^[9] and featured in a Life magazine article in 1965, about the culture shock returning volunteers faced.^[12][13] She was a recruiter for the Peace Corps after her field service ended,^[14] and gave interviews and lectures on the Corps' work,^[15][6] including television appearances and international tours.^[16]

Hanneman married businessman James McNulty in 1965. She died in 2019, at the age of 66, in Laguna Woods, California. Her widower established a nursing scholarship in her memory.^[16]