Elinor Grace Kirby was born on May 17, 1919, in Star Township in Cloud County, Kan. the daughter of Osbourn and Grace Kirby. She married Thomas Monroe Lewallen, Jr. (1916-2001) on August 14, 1948 in Rockford, Ill. The couple had five children: Janet, Dean, Gary, Kent, and Frances Dee. Elinor Lewallen served in various volunteer leadership positions with the Methodist Church in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, Colo. as well as the Denver League of Women Voters, Denver Anti-Crime Council. In the 1980s she became involved with the Denver chapter of the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) serving on the organization's board, staffing the helpline, speakers bureau, progam chair of monthly meetings and editing the organiztion's newsletter. From 1981 to 1991 she also served on the Sexual Ministiries Task Force of the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Methodist Church. Lewallen received numerous awards for her PFLAG activities as well as the Civil Rights Award from the Armerican Association of University Women (1998), President's Award for Distinguished Service to Church and Society from the Iliff School of Theology (2000), and many others. She died in Denver, Colo. on September 14, 2012.
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