Obituary: Mary Louise “Biddy” Miller Hurlbut

Memorial services for Mary Louise “Biddy” Miller Hurlbut, 80, Tonganoxie, were Monday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Lawrence. Private inurnment will be at a later date.

Mrs. Hurlbut died Tuesday, May 1, 2007, in Kansas City, Mo.

She was born Dec. 30, 1926, in Lawrence, the daughter of Charles E. and Corinne Wootten Miller.

She graduated from Barstow School in Kansas City, Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., and Finch College in New York.

Mrs. Hurlbut was a longtime member of Trinity Episcopal Church, where she served on the vestry. She organized a drive to raise funds for the Kansas Bell for the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. She served on many boards, including Turner House, an African American community center in Kansas City. She was president of Planned Parenthood in Kansas City, and served on the national board of NARAL, an organization devoted to maintaining a woman’s right to choose.

She was also a founding member of the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus Endowment and Education Fund and the Missouri Women’s Leadership Coalition. She and her daughter Annie founded the Peruvian Connection, a catalog company dedicated to luxury fiber designs based on ethnographic textiles, in 1977.

She married Gordon B. Hurlbut on Oct. 4, 1947, in Tonganoxie. He died in December 2006.

Survivors include three daughters, Corinne Hurlbut, Tonganoxie, Hether Smith, Philadelphia, and Annie Zander, Kansas City, Mo.; a sister, Helen Sencenbaugh, Scottsdale, Ariz.; and three granddaughters.

The family suggests memorials to the church or Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus Endowment and Education Fund, sent in care of Peruvian Connection Canaan Farm, Tonganoxie 66086.