Your UUCS Endowment Team is pleased to announce a generous gift from the estate of long-time church member Mary Monroe, who died last year at the age of 88. Her memorial service was held on July 9, 2022. She was affiliated with our church for decades, serving as religious education director and UUCS Board President.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Monroe was studying at the University of Michigan when she met and married a young medical student, Alden Parker. She completed her education degree while having three children in four years. She was pregnant with her fourth child when the family moved to Spokane in 1961.

In the 1970s, as a divorced mother with no work experience, she built a career in fundraising for the American Heart Association, St. Luke’s Hospital and the YMCA. She married Glenn Elkins and was widowed in 1979.

In 1981, she moved with her third husband, Larry Monroe, to live on a steel-hulled diesel boat in remote Kodiak, Alaska. She helped start a UU fellowship, directed the Kodiak Women’s Resource and Crisis Center, and later managed the Child Development Center at the U.S. Coast Guard base on the island. Monroe also served two terms on the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly and two terms on the Kodiak City Council. She ran a business, Kodiak Bed & Breakfast, for two decades before moving back to Spokane permanently in 2011.

Her survivors include her seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and her four children: UUCS member Melissa Parker, Betsy Hammond, Andrew Parker, and Matthew Parker.

Melissa Parker recalls her mother’s energy, business savvy, and lifelong generosity to her family, community, and church. She also supported the Spokane Humane Society, the Democratic Party and the Kodiak Historical Society.

“Liberal religion was very important to her. She backed up her words with dollars.”

Melissa Parker