Eve Malo was only a part of our Meeting for a few years, but she left a lasting impact with her dedication to peace.
Eve was a grand soul – a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, social activist, professor emeritus at University of Montana Western, human rights and peace advocate, cherished member of Dillon’s Quaker community and an attender of Central Coast Meeting, an author, a fierce advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, and a friend to many. Eve provided us with a wonderful example of a life lived fully and well.
Eve was born on November 15, 1928 in Michigan. The seeds of Eve’s lifelong activism were sown early in life when she was 4 years old and moved to Europe with her mother. She was educated in Swiss and English schools where international studies were emphasized and where she learned to speak three different languages. She and her mother traveled extensively throughout Europe during the summers, and it was during these travels in Europe in the late 1930’s that Eve first encountered social injustice as she witnessed the rise of Hitler in Germany. Her mother introduced her to Mahatma Ghandi’s writings and the peace movement through teaching her about the League of Nations. So, at an early age Eve learned about the need for people to solve their problems and differences through dialogue as opposed to violent means.
Eve taught in Universities in Montana, Nicaragua and a year in China. Though her working years were spent in the halls of academia, her activism moved her well beyond those walls and into the world community.
In 2006, Eve published a book, Dynamite Women: the Ten Women Nobel Peace Laureates of the 20th century. In writing the book, she traveled the world over to interview, in person, the ten women who are the subject of the book. The idea for this writing project came to her when she traveled across Europe with a group of women who were all attending the 1995 Beijing United Nations forum on the Status of Women which was sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, of which Eve was a longtime member.
In 2001 Eve and her friend Claire earned the ACLU Jeanette Rankin Civil Liberties Award and the Jeanette Rankin Peace Award from Rocky Mountain College Institute for Peace Studies. The two awards were given for advocating and protecting the rights of everyone and exemplifying the values promoted by Ms. Rankin, namely: conflict resolution, promoting understanding and unity among people of diverse backgrounds and peacemaking on both a local and global level. In 2005, Eve was a recipient of the Montana Governor’s Humanities award for her human rights activism and for her work teaching Restorative Justice.
Eve was a generous person who extended to everyone the respect she believed all people deserved. In our Meeting she was a presence for plain speaking, for children, for peace making. We love her