Eleanor Anne Brown Malone
October 20, 1928 ~ August 7, 2022
Eleanor Anne Brown Malone, a longtime resident of Wichita, KS, and native of Kansas City, MO, died on August 7, 2022 after a short illness. She was 93 years old. She is survived by her seven children and nineteen grandchildren.
Eleanor Malone served for many years as a leader in her daughter’s Camp Fire Girls club and as room mother for several of her children’s homerooms at the School of the Magdalen in Wichita, where she also served as PTA president. She engaged in a number of other volunteer activities with her children including filling in on their newspaper routes and organizing annual school field trips.
After her children grew up, quilting became a major focus of Eleanor’s life. She became a leader in quilting organizations, serving as president of the Kansas Quilt Project and on the boards of the American Quilt Study Group and the Prairie Quilt Guild. Her work with the Kansas Quilt Project included many shows around the state, displaying Kansas quilts which culminated in a book about the history of Kansas quilts and quilt makers, and an exhibit at the Kansas History Museum in Topeka funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
She quilted hundreds of quilts herself and chaired annual charity auctions where quilts were the prize. She was accomplished at a number of other crafts including needlepoint, decoupage and miniatures. She and her husband Clifford enjoyed traveling throughout the United States and Mexico. They went to Europe several times with the Flying Jayhawks and explored the family’s origins in County Louth, Ireland. She followed her grandchildren’s education so closely that one day she attended a graduation in Atlanta and then later the same day another in Kansas City.
The Malone family were longtime parishioners at the Church of the Magdalen in Wichita, where Eleanor served as a Mass lector and on the architectural board that chose the design of the current church. They lived in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood, where Eleanor was president of the neighborhood association and kept up the family home until the last few years when she moved into assisted living. Her other volunteer activities included regular blood donations and poll worker at her election precinct.
Survivors include her seven children: Patrick Malone (Vicki) of Chevy Chase, MD, Timothy Malone (Martha) of Reston, VA, Kevin Malone of Atlanta, GA, Diane Malone Moser (Alfred Moser) of Overland Park, KS, Barry Malone (Alesia) of Plano, TX, Shawn Malone of Shawnee, KS, and Daniel Malone (Beth) of Seattle, WA, plus 19 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband Clifford, who practiced law in Wichita for many years with the Adams Jones Robinson & Malone firm, and by their son Joseph, who died at birth in 1956.
Eleanor Brown was born on October 20, 1928 in Kansas City, MO., the second of two children of Austin Brown Sr., and Catherine Dougherty Brown. Her brother Austin “Bob” Brown Jr., predeceased her. She attended Paseo High School in Kansas City and then junior college in Kansas City before she spent her last two years of college at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1949. She was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority at KU. She married Clifford Malone in 1950 and worked as a grade school teacher in Lawrence and Topeka until the couple moved to Wichita in 1953, where they spent the rest of their lives.
Her children and their spouses said in a statement: “"She was a great mom, mother-in-law, grandma, and friend. Even though we are grateful she lived a great long life, we can’t help but wish for more of her vibrant and protective force in our lives."
Graveside Service will be at 1:00 pm, Tuesday, August 16, 2022, at Ascension Cemetery. Memorial Mass will be at 10:00 am, Friday, September 16, 2022, at Church of the Magdalen Catholic Church.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her memory to Catholic Charities of Wichita, 437 N. Topeka St., Wichita, KS 67202.
Services in care of Downing & Lahey East Mortuary.
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My mother, Ella Mae McGuire, frequently played bridge with Mrs. Malone and had nothing but good things to say about her. I myself knew Mr. and Mrs. Malone from their hour of Eucharistic Adoration at the old Magdalen. I admired them both. Tim McGuire